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HANDBOUND 
AT  THE 


UNIVERSITY  OF 


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5''3^6> 


THE   CELTIC  REVIEW 


THE 

''^OELTIC   REVIEW 


PUBLISHED    QUARTERLY 


Consulting  Editor  :   PROFESSOR  MACKINNON 
Acting  Editor:  MISS  E.  C.  CARMICHAEL 


VOLUME    VI 
JULY    1909    TO    APRIL    1910 


EDINBURGH :  T.  &  A.  CONSTABLE,  PRINTERS  TO  HIS  MAJESTY. 

LONDON :  DAVID  NUTT,  57-59  LONG  ACRE,  W.C. 

DUBLIN :  HODGES,  FIGGIS  &  CO.,  LTD.,  104  GRAFTON  ST 


y 


1033789 


Kdlnbargh  :  T.  and  A.  Cokutablb,  Printew  to  His  Mi^Mty 


CONTENTS 


Accents,  Apostrophes,    and    Hy- 
phens in  Scottish  Gaelic, 

A    New    Solution    of    the    Fairy 
Problem, 

An  Outline  of  Breton  History, 

Aspiration  in  Scottish  Gaelic, 

Battle  of  Raith  and  its  Song  Cycle, 

Bas  Bhrain  Agus  Dhiarmaid, 

Buchanan,  Dugald, 

Conn,  Son  of  the  Red, 

Dermaid  and  Grainn^, 

Druids  and  Mound-Dwellers, 

Duatharachd  na  Mara, 

Jubainville,  M.  d'Arbois  de, 

Landavensium  Ordo  Chartarum,  . 

Moore,  Mr.  A.  W.,    . 

Morrison,  John,  of  Harris,  . 

Note,  .  .  .  . 

O !  's  tu  's  gura  tu  th'  air  m'aire,   . 

On  the  Orthography  of  Scottish 
Gaelic,      .... 


Professor  MacJcinnon,        .     193 

David  MacRitchie,  .     160 

Yvonne  Josee,         .  .      30 

Professor  Mackinnon,       .      97 

E.  W.  B.  Nicholson,  .     214 

Donald  MacDonald,  131 

William  Jolly       .  .147 

Donald  A.  Mackenzie,       .     150 

Donald  A.  Mackenzie,       .     348 

David  MacRitchie,    .        .257 

Goinneach  MacLeoid,        .     241 

.  384 
Alfred  Anscomhe,    123,  272,  289 

.  283 
Rev.  M.  N.  Munro,  .     135 

By  Niall  D.  Campbell,  .  190 
Miss  F.  M.  Morrison,         .     130 

Professor  Mackinnon,       .         1 


VI 


THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 


Pan-Celtic  Notes, 
Reply, 

Reviews  of  Books : 

Die  Kultur  des  Gegenwart,  Drs. 
{reviewed  by  Julitis  Pokomy)  ; 
(reviewed  by  A.  0,  A.),  . 


PAQB 

85, 176,  287,  375 
288 


Zimmer,   Stern,  and  Kuno  Meyer, 
Zeitschrift  fiir  Celtische  Philologie 


93 


Handbuch  des  Altirischen,  Professor  Thuraeysen  {reviewed  by  A.  0.  A.) ; 
The  Bretons  at  Home,  Mrs.  Frances  M.  Gostling  {reviewed  by  G. 
M.  Golvin)  ;  (Jaelic  Songs  for  Schools,  C.  H.  Mackay  and  M. 
Macfarlane  {revie^wed  by  Rev.  M.  N.  Munro) ;  Musical  Instruments, 
Ft.  II.,  R.  B.  Armstrong  {reviewed  by  Rev.  M.  N.  Munro) ; 
Songs  of  the  Hebrides,  Mrs.  Kennedy- Fraser  {reviewed  by  Rev.  M.  JV. 
Munro) ;  An  Introduction  to  Early  Welsh,  by  the  late  John  Strachan, 
LL.D.  {reviewed  by  Professor  E.  Anwyl)  ;  Welsh  Medioeval  Law, 
Rev.  A  W.  Wade-Evans  {reviewed  by  Professor  E.  Anwyl\    . 

The  Norse  Influence  on  Celtic  Scotland,  Rev.  George  Henderson 
{reviewed  by  W.  A.  Craigie,  LL.D.) ;  Old  Ross-shire  and  Scotland, 
W.  MacgiU  {reviewed  by  W.  J.  Watsm,  LL.D.) ;  Alt-Celtischer 
Sprachschatz,  Alfred  Holder  {reviewed  by  W.  J.  Watson,  LL.D.) ; 
Duthil,  Past  and  Present,  Rev.  Donald  Maclean  ;  Reminiscences 
and  Reflections  of  an  Octogenarian  Highlander,  Duncan  Campbell,    . 


181 


Righ  Eirionn  's  a  dha  mhac, 

Some  Unrecorded  Incidents  of  the 
Jacobite  Risings, 

The  Connection  of  the  Isle  of  Man 
with  Ireland, 

The  Fians  of  Knockfarrcl,  . 

The  Macneills  of  Argyllshire, 

The    Relative   Clause    in    Scotch 
Gaelic,       .... 


Late  Rev.  J.  0.  GampheU  of 
Tires, 


378 


364 


Aleocander 
LL.L., 


Garmichael, 

.     278,334 


A.  W.  Moore,  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Keys,  .  .110 

Donald  A.  Mackenzie,       .       18 

Rev.  A.  Maclean  Sinclair,      65 

John  Fraser,  M.A.,  .    356 


tl 


CONTENTS  vii 

PAGE 

The  Scottish  Race  and  Kingdom, .     James  Ferguson,  K.G.,       .     304 


Topographical  Varia,          .            ,     W.  J.  Watson,  LL.D.,        .  236 

Traces  of  Neuter  Gender  in  Scottish 

Gaelic,      ....    Professor  Mackinnon,       .  296 

Welsh  Folk-Song  Collections,        .     Alfred    Perceval    Graves 

and  Dr.  Lloyd  Williams,  207 

Welsh  Note, 377 

Whitley  Stokes,     .            .            .        Richard  Henebry,            .  65 

Who  is  the  Heir  of  the  Duchy  of 

Brittany  ?             .            .            .    Henry  Jenner,       .            .  47 


-   THE    CELTIC    REVIEW 

JULY  15,  1909 

ON   THE   OETHOGEAPHY   OF   SCOTTISH   GAELIC 

Professor  Mackinnon 

Among  the  nations  who  have  made  use  of  the  Roman 
Alphabet  in  writing  their  language  the  Celts,  and  especially 
the  Gaels,  were  from  the  first  placed,  or  placed  themselves, 
at  a  disadvantage.  The  most  copious  Alphabet,  it  need 
hardly  be  said,  is  incapable  of  adequately  indicating  the 
almost  infinite  variety  of  word-sounds,  and  the  Latin 
Alphabet  possesses  only  a  very  limited  number  of  char- 
acters. And  here  it  may  be  remarked  once  for  all  that 
words  are  sounds,  and  not,  as  we  have  fallen  into  the  habit 
of  writing,  an  arbitrary  combination  of  vowels  and  con- 
sonants. In  the  matter  of  vowel-sounds  the  several  peoples 
stood  pretty  much  upon  a  level.  They  borrowed  all  the 
Latin  vowel  -  characters,  and  endeavoured  to  represent 
their  sounds  by  writing  these  singly,  doubly,  or  in  com- 
bination. The  case  was  different  with  respect  to  the 
consonant-sounds.  The  Celtic  dialects,  as  is  well  known, 
differ  from  the  Teutonic  and  Romance  dialects  in  having 
their  consonant-sounds  infected  or  modified  in  a  remark- 
able manner.  The  fact  makes  the  need  for  additional 
characters  more  clamant  in  their  case.  But,  to  our  sur- 
prise, the  Gaels  did  not  adopt  into  their  Alphabet  the 
whole  of  the  consonants  available.  This  is  all  the  more 
astonishing  when  we  remember  that  the  people  were  in  the 
habit  of  writing  their  language  in  a  copious  Alphabet  of 

VOL.  VI.  A 


2  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

their  own  before  they  came  into  literary  communication 
with  the  Romans.  This  was  the  Ogham  Alphabet,  which 
consisted  of  a  series  of  straight  lines  arranged  with  reference 
to  a  base  stem  thus  : 

X  d     t      e       q        m    g      ng        X  r  a     o       u         e  i 

l„lullnllll.    'I'""""""    ///////////////   lllllllllllll!! 

Other  and  more  elaborate  graphs  were  used  later  for 
diphthongs,  triphthongs,  p  and  z,  A  witty  Frenchman 
once  remarked  that  this  peculiar  script  must  have  been 
invented  for  the  convenience  of  stone-cutters,  and  he  might 
have  added  that  it  is  quite  possible  the  inventor  was  a  stone- 
cutter. We  hear  of  its  having  been  used  on  wooden  tablets, 
but  specimens  have  disappeared.  Apart  from  explanations 
of  the  characters  and  of  their  values  preserved  in  old 
MSS.,  examples  of  the  actual  use  of  the  Ogham  script  now 
remain  only  in  inscriptions  on  stone.  It  may  be  added  that 
the  value  of  these  inscriptions  is  linguistic  rather  than 
literary  or  historical.  They  prove  to  us,  among  other  things, 
that  Gaelic  declension  was,  in  the  fifth  century,  written  with 
nearly  the  fulness  of  form  of  Gaulish  declension  four 
hundred  years  earlier,  or  of  Latin  declension  of  the  same 
period.  But  such  a  clumsy  mode  of  writing  was  not 
destined  to  survive. 

Whatever  the  reason,  our  early  Gaelic  authors  in  making 
use  of  the  Latin  Alphabet  for  writing  their  language  borrowed 
only  eighteen  of  its  characters,  the  five  vowels  and  thirteen 
consonants.  They  did  indeed  make  occasional  use  of  a  few 
others — y  and  z  are  met  with  once  or  twice  in  the  oldest  of 
the  MSS.  ;  they  wrote  k  occasionally  as  a  contraction  for  ca, 
or  for  cath  *  battle,'  q  for  cu,  and  x  for  cs.  This  last  they 
retained  permanently  in  their  numeration  to  express,  as  in 
Latin,  ten.  They  seem  never  to  have  used  j  or  v,  and  the 
Romans  themselves  did  not  have  w.  The  Gaels  attached 
to  the  characters  they  borrowed  the  values  which  they 
represented  in  Latin  as  closely  as  the  sounds  of  the  two 
languages  permitted.     They  spelled,  in  a  rough  and  ready 


mTHOGEAPHY  OF  SCOTTISH  GAELIC 

way,  phonetically.  There  were  dialects  then  as  now,  and 
these  account  no  doubt  for  some  of  the  anomalies  in  ortho- 
graphy which  meet  us  even  in  the  best  written  MSS.  But 
the  fruitful  source  of  discrepancies  in  spelling,  before  the 
invention  of  printing  and  for  long  after,  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  there  was  no  careful  proof-reading  in  those  days,  and 
that  authors  and  scribes  were  not  so  much  impressed  with 
the  importance  of  uniformity  in  orthography  as  we  have 
become. 

Our  ancestors  who  founded  our  orthographical  system 
thus  hampered  it  by  limiting  the  number  of  characters 
adopted  from  the  Latin  Alphabet.  They  further  loaded  it 
by  endeavouring  to  preserve  in  their  orthography  the 
etymological  relations  of  words.  And  the  peculiar  phonesis 
of  the  Celtic  dialects  necessitated  recognition  which 
constitutes  the  most  distinctive  feature  of  our  orthography. 
For  example:  the  pointed  dental  sound  represented  in 
English  by  t  and  d  is  practically  uniform,  so  that  the 
characters  always  indicate  the  sounds.  But  in  Gaelic  t  and 
d  stand  each  for  two  different  sounds.  We  indicate  these 
in  writing  by  attaching  a  broad  vowel  (a,  o,  or  u)  in  the  one 
case  to  these  consonants,  and  a  small  vowel  (e  or  i)  in  the 
other.  The  sound  of  small-f,  which  is  like  the  English  ch 
or  rather  tch,  it  would  be  difficult  to  represent;  but  the 
sound  of  small-^Z  would  be  fairly  indicated  by  j,  if  only  that 
character  had  been  in  the  Gaelic  Alphabet.  Again  the 
common  personal  name  popularly  pronounced  Do' all  was 
in  its  full  form  Domnovalos,  '  world-chief.'  By  the  time  the 
word  was  first  written  in  Gaelic  the  terminal  -os  had  dis- 
appeared, the  V  had  vocalised,  and  the  name  was  written 
Domnall,  although  sounded  DovnalL  It  was  written  in 
Latin  Dovenald,  hence  the  final  d  in  the  English  form 
Donald.  We  now  write  in  Gaelic  Domhnall,  thus  preserving 
so  far  the  evidence  of  the  original  form  of  the  name.  But 
we  do  so  in  this  case,  as  in  numberless  other  cases,  by  writing 
legions  of  now  silent  consonants.  Such  is  the  tribute  we 
pay  to  etymology  in  our  orthography. 


4  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

The  more  peculiar  features  of  our  Gaelic  mode  of  spelling 
are  due  to  the  phonesis  of  the  language.  In  the  Celtic 
dialects  the  consonant-sounds  are  modified  to  a  much  larger 
extent  than  in  the  neighbouring  European  tongues.  They 
become  in  certain  well-defined  positions  infected,  so  to 
speak,  in  a  remarkable  way.  One  of  these  we  call  Aspira- 
tion. This  feature  of  our  language,  although,  perhaps,  not 
so  all-pervading  when  the  language  first  came  to  be  written 
as  it  now  is,  was  in  active  operation,  but  the  earliest  scribes 
recognised  it  in  the  case  of  two  consonants  only — c  and  L 
They  wrote  these,  when  aspirated,  in  one  of  two  ways, 
either  cA,  th,  as  we  write  them  in  Scotland  now,  or  by  placing 
a  graph  over  them  somewhat  like  a  bisected  h  thus —  c,  i. 
But  that  the  other  consonants  had  their  aspirated  sounds, 
although  the  MSS.  take  no  note  of  the  fact,  we  have  con- 
vincing proof.  The  sounds  of  radical  b  and  m,  and  of  d  and  g, 
are  quite  different,  and  do  not  become  confused.  But  the 
infected  or  aspirated  sounds  of  the  same  pairs  of  consonants 
are  so  nearly  identical  that  in  phonetic  writing  they  fre- 
quently interchange — e.g.  bh  and  mh  as  in  ria6h  for  riamh  ; 
dh  and  gh  as  in  deacQi  for  dea^h.  We  find  the  confusion  in 
the  oldest  writings.  In  the  Zeussian  glosses,  e.g,  claideft, 
'  sword,'  is  the  all  but  universal  form.  But  occasionally 
cloidem  is  met  with.  Later,  cloidem  became  the  common 
script,  and  now  we  write  invariably  claidheamh  in  Scotland 
and  cloideam  in  Ireland.  The  Latin  word  memoria  was 
early  borrowed  into  Gaelic.  We  write  the  word  correctly 
meo7nAair,  but  in  old  MSS.  the  more  common  form  was 
meftuir.  The  explanation  of  this  interchange  of  b  and  m 
in  these  as  in  many  other  instances  is  that  the  real  inter- 
change is  not  between  b  and  m  but  between  bh  and  mh. 
Similarly  with  respect  to  d  and  gr,  the  confusion  of  which  in 
the  old  as  in  the  modern  orthography  is  so  common  that 
illustration  is  hardly  necessary,  e.g.  deac^h-ghean, '  goodwill,' 
for  dea^h-ghean ;  an  deigh.  so,  '  after  this,'  for  an  deidh  so. 

At  a  later  date,  Gaelic  writers,  observing  that  aspirated 
8  sounded  only  as  a  breathing   and  that  aspirated  /  was 


ORTHOGEAPHY  OF  SCOTTISH  GAELIC  5 

altogether  silent,  noted  these  facts  in  their  script.  But 
instead  of  adopting  the  marks  of  aspiration  of  c  and  t,  they 
used  the  punctum  delens  of  Latin  scribes  and  placed  a  dot  (.) 
over  these  consonants  to  indicate  their  aspiration,  thus  /,  s. 
The  oldest  of  the  great  Gaelic  MSS.,  Leabhar  na  h-Uidhre, 
the  scribe  of  which  was  killed  by  a  party  of  robbers  in 
A.D.  1106,  is  written  with  marks  of  aspiration  placed  on 
these  four  consonants  only — c,  t,  s,  and  /.  Gradually,  in 
later  MSS.,  the  other  consonants  came  to  be  marked  when 
aspirated  like  s  and  /,  the  consonants  c  and  t  still  retaining 
their  old  signs.  As  it  happened  it  was  John  Carsewell 
of  Argyll  who,  in  1567,  had  the  distinction  of  being  the  first 
to  print  a  Gaelic  book.  He  was  quite  familiar  with  MSS. 
and  the  practice  of  Gaelic  scribes.  But  he  indicated  the 
aspiration  of  consonants,  not  by  putting  the  dot  over  the 
infected  letter,  but  by  placing  h  alongside  of  it.  Although 
I,  n,  and  r,  the  only  consonants  which  we  double  now  in 
writing,  have  their  aspirated  sounds  like  the  others  Carse- 
well somehow  ignored  these  three  and  left  them  unmarked. 
His  example  has  since  been  followed  in  Scotland.  The 
editors  of  the  quarto  edition  of  the  Gaelic  Scriptures  of 
1826  felt  the  anomaly  of  leaving  aspirated  I,  n,  r  unmarked, 
but  instead  of  writing  h  after  these  letters  to  indicate  their 
aspiration  they  printed  them  thus  :  i,  n,  r.  This  method 
was  followed  in  the  Highland  Society's  Dictionary,  in  an 
edition  of  the  Scriptures  printed  in  very  small  type,  and  in 
one  or  two  minor  publications,  but  was  not  generally 
adopted.  In  Irish  print,  on  the  other  hand,  the  placing  of 
a  dot  over  the  consonant  to  mark  aspiration  has  been 
followed. 

Another  phase  of  infection  which  appears  in  our  spelling 
is  what  is  called  Nasal  Infection,  due  to  the  operation  of  the 
sound  which  n  represents.  In  individual  words  n  in  Gaelic 
affects  the  adjacent  consonant  in  a  remarkable  way. 
Before  t,  e.g.,  it  regularly  disappeared.  The  original  Aryan 
word  which  the  Romans  wrote  iTi^er  we  write  eacZar.  Even 
in    modern    loans    the    same    result    is    seen — ParliameTif 


6  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

becomes  Parlamaid  Again,  at  the  present  day,  the 
combination  ng  is  hardly  ever  sounded  in  full  among  us. 
The  one  element  or  the  other  gives  way.  We  write  fuilingr, 
but  we  say  either  f uilinn  or  fuiligr.  But  it  is  with  respect  to 
initial  sounds  that  the  operation  of  the  nasal  mainly  concerns 
us  here.  It  is  well  known  that  in  Gaelic  when  two  words  in 
close  grammatical  relation  are  sounded  together  under  one 
accent  they  are  treated  phonetically  as  one  word.  The 
phonetic  processes  that  rule  in  the  individual  word  govern 
this  Unit,  as  it  is  sometimes  called.  In  the  case  of  Vocalic 
Infection,  initial  Aspiration  is  explained  in  this  way.  We 
say,  e.g.,  that  the  t  in  mdthair  is  aspirated,  because  it  is  a 
single  consonant  jflanked  by  vowels.  If  we  place  a  word 
like  mo,  'my,'  which  originally  ended  in  a  vowel,  before 
mdthair,  the  m  of  mdthair  is  now  temporarily  flanked  by 
vowels  as  the  t  is  permanently,  and  the  m,  while  in  this 
position,  aspirates  like  the  t,  and  for  the  same  reason. 
Similarly  with  respect  to  the  initial  aspiration  which  follows 
certain  cases  of  the  Article,  certain  Prepositions,  and  the 
like.  A  similar  influence  is  exerted  on  the  following  word 
in  the  case  of  an  Unit,  of  which  the  final  sound  of  the  first 
word  was  an  original  nasal — such  words  as  gu^n,  '  that '  ; 
an,  the  Interrogative  particle  ;  an  {n),  the  Preposition,  and 
many  others.  The  nasal  in  such  an  Unit  operates  as  in 
individual  words.  The  old  Grammarians  formulated  the 
Rule  of  the  Nasal  thus  :  '  The  Nasal  stands  firm  before 
vowels  ;  it  disappears  before  s  and  /  ;  it  assimilates  with 
I,  m,  n,  and  r  ;  it  disappears  before  the  tenues  c,  p,  t,  reducing 
these  to  their  corresponding  mediae,  g,  h,  d  ;  and  it  eclipses 
(in  their  Gaelic  phrase  "drowns")  the  mediae,^  1  do  not 
know  whether  there  ever  has  been,  over  a  wide  area,  rigid 
adherence  to  the  rule  of  the  Grammarians  in  the  speech 
of  the  people ;  but  in  Ireland  there  was  at  any  rate  large 
adherence,  and  the  language  has  been  written  in  terms  of 
the  rule.  In  Scotland  there  has  been  only  partial  adherence 
in  writing,  while  in  speaking  some  districts  follow  the  rule 
more  closely  than  others.     The  early  editors  of  the  Scrip- 


OETHOGRAPHY  OF  SCOTTISH  GAELIC  7 

tures  pretty  uniformly  observed  the  clause  regarding 
assimilation  of  the  nasal  with  I,  m,  n,  r — they  wrote  as  a 
rule  gu  (not  gu^n)  leag,  gu  mair,  gu  naomhaich,  gu  ruig,  forms 
which  we  would  do  well  to  follow.  But  neither  they  nor 
the  Scottish  grammarians  took  note  of  the  part  of  the  rule 
relating  to  tenues  and  mediae.  In  Scotland  we  give  only  a 
very  limited  obedience  to  this  part.  We  almost  aU  say 
A71  deid  thu  learn  ?  '  Will  you  go  with  me  ?  '  but  no  one  says, 
much  less  writes,  A  d-teid  thu  learn  ?  Some  say  ane, 
'  yesterday,'  but  much  the  greater  number  say,  as  we  all 
write,  an  de.  In  common  speech  we  expel  the  nasal  oftener 
than  not  before  s  and  /  ;  in  writing  we  do  exactly  the 
reverse.  In  Scotland  as  in  Ireland  the  nasal  always  stands 
firm  before  vowels. 

The  cases  mentioned  derive  their  validity  mainly  from 
the  operation  of  the  clause  accent  or  stress.     But  these  by 
no  means  exhaust  the  influence  of  the  accent  upon  our 
pronunciation,   or  even  upon  our  orthography,   although 
the    grammarians    and    lexicographers    take   little    or   no 
notice  of  the  fact.     Some  words  have  developed  two  forms 
under  its  sway — la  and  laiha^  hidh  and  bithidh,  thuirt  and 
thuhhairt,  with  many  more.     An  dara  latha,  '  the  second 
day,'  but  an  dara  la  deug,  '  the  twelfth  day  '  ;  hidh  mi  falbh, 
'  I  will  be  going,'  but  hithidh,  gun  teagamh,  '  Yes,  certainly.' 
Mdthair  is  a  word  of  two  syllables,  the  first  being  long. 
Attach  ceile,  '  spouse,'  as  a  qualifying  epithet,  and  you  have 
mathdir-cheile  as  we  write  the  compound  noun.     The  stress 
is  strong  on  the  second  element  ceile,  and  under  its  influence 
the  first  word  mdthair  becomes  a  monosyllable,  and  short  at 
that.     We  say  MUr-cheile.     In  the  same  way  in  the  cases 
where  sounds  of  strong  assimilative  force — I  and  d,  n  and  d, 
c  and  ch  or  gr,  s  and  d  or  t,  d  and  t  and  others — meet  in  a 
phrase,  aspiration  is  checked  through  the  influence  of  the 
accent :    thus — gun  fhios  da,  '  unknown  to  him,'  but  gun 
fhios  dhd-san ;  mac  Ghriogair  (under  even  accent),  '  Gregor's 
son,'  but  MaC'Griogair  (under  one  strong  accent),  '  Mac- 
Gregor.'     Ignorant  of  the  part  which  the  accent  plays  in 


8  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

such  phrases  good  writers  are  frequently  misled.  Even  the 
translators  of  the  Scriptures  wrote  facal  De,  a  phrase  under 
even  accent,  as  equivalent  to  '  the  word  of  God.'  The  true 
equivalent  is  *  the  word  of  (a)  god.'  To  check  the  aspiration 
of  the  proper  name,  the  phrase  would  require  to  have  one 
strong  stress,  on  the  first  syllable  or  on  the  last.  The 
meaning  meant  to  be  conveyed  is  properly  expressed  in 
Scottish  Gaelic  by  facal  Dhe. 

Because  of  the  poverty  of  oiu*  Alphabet  the  early  Gaelic 
writers  were,  like  others,  obliged  to  use  certain  devices  to 
indicate  the  different  timbre  of  the  consonants.  In  English, 
e.g,y  the  different  shades  of  the  g  sound  are  indicated  by  the 
quality  of  the  following  vowel  in  got  and  get.  The  same 
plan  was  followed  in  Gaelic.  The  timbre  of  the  consonants, 
except  6,  /,  m,  and  p,  whose  sounds  hardly  vary,  is  indicated 
by  the  quality  of  the  vowel,  broad  or  small,  which  follows 
them.  But  when,  through  the  decay  of  flexion  or  otherwise, 
no  vowel  followed,  a  difficulty  arose  which  had  to  be  over- 
come. Our  word  bard,  e.g.,  is  what  we  call  a  noun  of  the 
masculine  o-stem  group,  and  was  declined  in  old  Gaelic 
like  dominus  in  Latin,  with  its  genitive  singular  and 
nominative  plural  alike.  The  Gaelic  forms  would  be — 
Nominative  singular  bard-05.  Genitive  bard-^.  The  flex- 
ional  syllables  disappeared  very  probably  before  the 
language  was  written,  but  the  sound  of  the  truncated  word 
did  not  change.  The  nominative  case  presented  no  difficulty. 
The  d  was  followed  by  a  broad  vowel  when  the  word  had  its 
full  form,  and  preceded  by  a  broad  vowel  in  its  docked  form, 
so  that  its  proper  sound  was  sufficiently  guarded  to  the  eye. 
But  what  of  the  genitive  ?  Its  sound  was  barj-i,  and  bard-i 
represented  that  sound.  When  the  -i  syllable  was  dropped, 
the  sound  still  remaining  was  barj.  Could  bard  represent 
this  sound  ?  It  clearly  could  not.  That  was  the  sound  of 
the  nominative  case.  Had  the  j  been  adopted  into  the 
Gaelic  Alphabet,  the  proper  spelling  would  have  been  an 
easy  matter — barj.  As  things  were,  the  only  possible  solution 
of  the  difficulty  was  resorted  to,  viz.  to  introduce  into  the 


f 


OETHOGEAPHY  OF  SCOTTISH  GAELIC  9 

truncated  word  the  dropped  vowel  of  flexion  in  order  to 
safeguard  to  the  eye  the  proper  sound  of  the  d,  and  to  write 
baM.  The  same  plan  was  afterwards  adopted  in  the  case 
of  final  consonants  which,  so  far  as  known  to  the  scribes, 
never  had  a  flexional  syllable.  S  followed  by  a  broad 
vowel  is  sibilant ;  s  followed  by  a  small  vowel  sounds  like 
English  sh.  But  what  of  sis,  '  downwards,'  fis,  '  knowledge,' 
and  such  like  ?  Frequently  the  doubling  of  the  ambiguous 
consonant  was  resorted  to,  as  in  fiss,  but  latterly  a  broad  or 
a  small  vowel,  as  the  case  required,  was  inserted  before  the 
final  consonant  so  as  to  indicate  its  timbre  to  the  eye — 
sios,  fios,  and  so  forth.  The  plan  adopted  carried  far-reach- 
ing consequences  which  remain  with  us.  It  has  provided 
us  with  a  number  of  spurious  diphthongs  for  one  thing. 
It  is  also,  I  believe,  accountable  for  our  famous  orthographi- 
cal Rule  known  as  Leathann  ri  leathann  is  caol  ri  caol, 
'  Broad  to  broad  and  small  to  small,'  i.e.  the  vowels  flanking 
consonants  must  be  of  the  same  quality.  In  some  of  its 
aspects  the  rule  is  merely  an  illustration  in  Gaelic  of  a 
tendency  in  most  languages  to  the  assimilation  of  the 
vowels.  In  others  the  rule  has,  in  our  system,  a  phonetic 
justification.  Take,  e.g.,  the  -idh  of  our  future  tense.  The 
suflix  can  attach  simply  enough  to  verbs  which  have  a  small 
vowel  already  in  the  stem — cuir,  buin,  with  many  others. 
But  what  of  a  large  number  of  those  whose  final  sound  is 
broad — fag,  fas,  etc.  ?  If  simple  -idh  be  added  to  these  the 
broad  sound  of  g  and  s  is  no  longer  represented.  Fagidh 
and  idsidh  would  indicate  small  g  and  sh.  Gaelic  ortho- 
graphy would  thus  demand  in  the  large  majority  of  cases 
that  we  should  spell  according  to  the  rule.  And  it  is  not  at 
all  improbable  that  the  old  scholars  who  formulated  it 
looked  upon  the  comparatively  few  cases  that  deviated 
from  it  as  errors  of  spelling,  and  that  they  substituted  for  a 
phonetic  rule  of  wide  sway  an  arbitrary  law  of  universal 
application.  The  Fourth  Syllogism  in  Logic  is  supposed  to 
have  been  framed  upon  analogous  reasoning.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  the  Gaelic  rule  is  on  the  face  of  it  open  to  many 


10  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

objections,  and  in  one  or  two  special  cases  is  absolutely 
indefensible.  The  ending  of  the  past  participle  passive  of 
Gaelic  verbs  has  always  sounded  te.  But  the  rule  compels 
us  to  write  ta  after  a  broad  vowel — togta  for  togte.  Similar 
observations  might  be  made  regarding  other  suffixes,  e.g, 
-an,  -agy  -ail  and  others.  The  reader  will  find  a  powerful 
and  exhaustive  criticism  of  the  rule  by  Dr.  Stewart  in  his 
Grammar,  p.  32  et  seq.  (ed.  1811),  but  is  so  far  nugatory 
because  the  able  and  sagacious  author  unfortunately 
overlooked  the  fact  that  in  polysyllabic  words  the  sound  of 
a  consonant  in  Gaelic  is  indicated  by  the  vowel  which  follows 
it,  not  by  that  which  precedes. 

The  only  one  of  the  vowels  of  which  special  note  need  be 
taken  in  connection  with  our  orthography  is  e.  A,  o,  and  u 
have  always  been  broad,  and  i  has  always  been  small. 
But,  especially  in  monosyllabic  words,  e  was  ambiguous. 
It  showed  the  small  sound  of  the  preceding  consonant 
uniformly,  but  the  consonant  following  was  as  often  as  not 
broad.  Thus  sen,  '  old  '  ;  cet,  '  first,'  '  hundred  '  ;  nel, 
'  cloud,'  with  hundreds  more.  Hence  it  was  found  necessary 
to  write  a  broad  vowel  in  such  cases  after  e  to  remove 
the  ambiguity :  sean,  ceud,  neul.  Later,  even  when  a 
small  consonant  sound  followed  e,  i  was  added  ;  so  that, 
except  in  the  case  of  one  or  two  words  such  as  leth,  a  con- 
sonant does  not  now  immediately  follow  e.  It  is  always 
ea,  eiy  eo,  or  eu  with  us. 

Such  are  the  main  principles  upon  which  our  system 
of  orthography  was  framed  by  capable  and,  for  their  day, 
learned  men,  and  developed  by  their  successors,  scholars 
who  made  the  structure  of  the  language  a  subject  of  close 
study  for  a  thousand  years.  It  had  its  imperfections, 
due  partly  to  the  poverty  of  the  Alphabet,  partly  to  the 
laudable  desire  to  preserve  evidence  of  the  origin  of  the 
vocables,  and  largely  to  the  phonesis  of  the  language.  But 
carefully-written  MSS.  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  Carse- 
well's  translation  of  Knox's  Liturgy  are  about  as  correctly 
written  and  printed  as  English  MSS.  and  books  of  the  period. 


OETHOGEAPHY  OF  SCOTTISH  GAELIC        11 

On  Scottish  ground  Gaelic  scholarship,  and  especially 
the  practice  of  writing  the  language  in  the  traditional 
orthography,  was,  §o  far  as  one  can  gather,  pretty  much 
confined  to  Argyll  and  the  Isles.  Thus,  even  in  the  Book 
of  Deer,  we  find  some  marked  divergencies  from  Irish  MSS. 
of  the  same  date.  There  is  a  greater  tendency  to  suppress 
silent  consonants,  and  in  one  or  two  cases  aspiration  (of 
c,  e.g,)  is  indicated  by  doubling  the  letter,  a  device  of 
spelling  common  in  Welsh,  but  unknown  in  Gaelic.  And 
when  the  Dean  of  Lismore,  on  the  eve  of  the  Reformation, 
made  his  collection  of  Gaelic  verse,  his  brother  and  amanu- 
ensis, a  native  of  Fortingall,  discarded  the  Gaelic  hand  and 
Gaelic  orthography,  and  wrote  phonetically,  using  all  the  char- 
acters of  the  Alphabet  as  well  as  the  handwriting  current  in 
southern  Scotland  in  his  day,  all  which  innovations  help  to 
make  that  MS.  so  difficult  to  read  and  understand  now. 
Similarly  Duncan  Macrae  wrote  in  1688-93  the  Fernaig  MS. 
phonetically  in  the  dialect  of  the  west  of  Ross-shire,  and  in 
the  Alphabet  and  handwriting  of  the  south  of  Scotland. 

After  the  Reformation,  and  mainly  because  of  it,  to- 
gether with  the  fall  of  the  Macdonalds  of  Islay  and  Kintyre 
and  the  Plantation  of  Ulster,  the  knowledge  and  practice  of 
the  Gaelic  hand  and  orthography  gradually  died  out  in 
Scotland.  By  1750,  while  many  spoke  the  old  tongue  with 
greater  power  and  purity  than  we  do  now,  few  could  write 
it  according  to  the  traditional  way.  Besides,  the  literary 
orthography  had  in  course  of  time  become  more  and  more 
unsuitable  for  Highland  needs.  The  number  of  silent 
letters  had  accumulated.  Orthographical  forms,  such  as 
the  use  of  the  nasal  with  the  tenues  and  mediae,  misrepresented 
as  often  as  not  the  sounds  of  Scottish  Gaelic.  Our  diction 
and  idioms  demanded  fuller  recognition.  A  great  Reform 
of  the  traditional  orthography  became  essential,  if  literature 
was  to  flourish  among  us.  This  reform  fell  into  the  hands  of 
capable  and  scholarly  men  who  worked,  in  a  conservative 
manner,  upon  the  old  lines,  so  far  as  they  knew  and  under- 
stood   them — Macfarlane    of    Kilmelford,    Dr.    Smith    of 


12  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Campbeltown,  the  Stewarts  of  Killin,  Luss,  and  Dingwall, 
Robert  Armstrong,  Ewen  M'Lachlan,  and  the  editors  of  the 
Highland  Society's  Dictionary,  with  others.  Through  the 
labours  of  these  men  we  had  by  1828  a  fairly  uniform 
standard  of  orthography,  based  upon  the  old,  but  modified 
to  suit  Scottish  requirements. 

Hitherto  we  in  Scotland  had  been  free  from  the  plague 
of  what  the  Irish  call  coigeachas,  '  provincialism,'  in  our 
orthography.  We  had  our  dialects,  but  the  scholars  I  have 
named  ignored  them  in  writing  their  native  Gaelic.  Dr. 
Mackintosh  Mackay  was  a  native  of  Sutherland,  but  not 
only  in  the  Highland  Society's  Dictionary  but  even  in  his 
edition  of  Rob  Donn  that  scholar  was  content  to  abide  by 
the  standard  orthography  of  his  predecessors.  Ewen 
M'Lachlan  was  from  Lochaber,  but  no  one  would  know  the 
fact  from  the  1818  edition  of  Ossian,  the  proofs  of  which 
were  corrected  by  him.  Later  on  we  had  the  misfortune  of 
falling  under  the  sway  of  very  excellent  men  in  their  way, 
but  smaller,  as  I  cannot  help  thinking — such  as  Neil 
M*Alpine,  James  Munro,  and  John  Mackenzie.  The  two 
first  were  good  grammarians,  and  the  last  had  a  wide 
knowledge  of  Gaelic  dialects.  But  so  far  as  I  can  judge  they 
did  not  always  use  their  knowledge  for  the  clearer  exposition 
of  the  language  and  the  enrichment  of  its  vocabulary  and 
idiom.  One  cannot  help  the  feeling  that  they  had  too  often 
a  desire  to  criticise  rivals  and  to  advance  particular  fads 
and  fancies,  while  they  confidently  decided  questions  of 
etjmiology  and  orthography  without  having  the  materials 
necessary  to  entitle  them  to  form  even  an  opinion  on 
such  matters.  M 'Alpine  can  hardly  quote  Skye  usage  with- 
out adding  a  point  of  exclamation,  and  James  Munro 
would  find  difficulty  in  tolerating  an  idiom  which  did  not 
pass  muster  in  Lochaber.  Of  John  Mackenzie  as  a  reformer 
of  Gaelic  orthography  it  is  enough  to  say  that  in  his  time 
the  knowledge  necessary  for  the  task  was  not  available, 
even  allowing  that  he  was  in  other  respects  a  competent  man 
to  make  proper  use  of  it. 


II 


ORTHOGEAPHY  OF  SCOTTISH  GAELIC         13 


It  is  not,  however,  to  these  men  that  we  chiefly  owe  the 
tendency  to  the  excessive  use  of  locaHsm  in  the  orthography 
of  Scottish  Gaelic  which  threatens  to  bring  our  limited 
literature  into  disrepute.  Irish  coigeachas  can  say  some- 
thing for  itself.  The  provinces  are,  after  all,  somewhat 
wide.  Every  one  has  read  the  saying  framed,  no  doubt,  in 
Connaught : — 

Td  bias  gan  heart  ag  an  Muimneac  ; 

Td  ceart  gan  hlas  ag  an  JJlltac ; 

Ni  fuil  ceart  nd  bias  ag  an  Laigneac ; 

Td  ceart  agus  bias  ag  an  g-Connactac. 

i,e,  'Munster  has  the  accent  but  not  the  idiom,  Ulster  has 
the  idiom  but  not  the  accent,  Leinster  has  neither  the  one 
nor  the  other,  while  Connaught  has  both.'  The  coigeachas 
of  Ireland  becomes  not  provincialism  among  us,  for  we  have 
only  one  province.  It  becomes  parochial  or  insular,  and 
as  such  contemptible.  What  gave  it  stimulus  in  Scotland 
in  recent  years  was  mainly  the  example  of  two  men  who 
were  in  many  ways  different  from  those  formerly  named — 
men  to  whom  Gaelic  literature  owes  a  great  debt,  and  who 
could  by  no  manner  of  means  be  spoken  of  as  small  men — 
John  F.  Campbell  and  Sheriff  Nicolson.  When  Mr.  Camp- 
bell began  to  collect  his  Popular  Tales  it  was  a  sound  literary 
instinct  that  suggested  the  presentment  of  them  in  dialectal 
form.  And  he  had  at  least  one  coadjutor — the  late  Mr. 
Hector  Maclean — as  fit  for  this  work  as  any  available  at 
the  time.  But  even  in  Maclean's  hands  the  dialects  came 
to  grief.  The  shibboleths  of  Colonsay — sean  and  neis  for 
sin  and  nis — are  duly  set  forth.  But  another  phonetic 
peculiarity  of  that  island — the  tendency  to  gutturalise  dh — 
issues  in  a  ludicrous  blunder.  Maclean  wrote  the  name  of 
the  Hero  of  the  Hed  Shield  phonetically  from  the  reciter, 
Mac  an  Earraioh  (for  Earraidh)  Uaine  ri  Gaisge,  which  Mr. 
Campbell  rendered,  a  la  Tattersall, '  Son  of  Green  Spring  by 
Valour,'  instead  of  '  The  green-clad  Youth  at  his  daring 
deeds.'  Curiously  enough  some  of  the  most  distinctive 
localisms   of   Campbell    and   Maclean's   native   Islay   are 


14  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

overlooked — ddmh  for  Idmh  ;  uichce  for  uisge  ;  rlche  and 
leiche  for  rithe  and  leatha.  Many  of  the  Tales  were  written 
down  by  men  who  were  incapable  of  writing  Gaelic  correctly 
on  any  standard,  phonetical  or  literary,  and  Mr.  Campbell 
printed  them  as  they  came  to  him.  They  are  thus  no 
reliable  guide  for  the  scientific  study  of  Gaelic  dialects. 
There  is  still  less  excuse  for  the  plan  upon  which  Leahhar 
na  Feinne  is  printed.  To  the  historical  student  of  Gaelic 
and  Gaehc  orthography  specimens  of  carefully- written  MSS. 
of  various  dates  are  essential.  But  in  Leahhar  na  Feinne, 
apart  from  the  extracts  from  the  Dean  of  Lismore's  MS., 
the  unsightly  orthography  of  the  MSS.  quoted  from  is  of 
no  earthly  value  except  to  show  the  infinite  variety  and 
range  of  bad  spelling. 

And  what  of  Sheriff  Nicolson's  admirable  Collection  of 
Proverbs  ?  Surely  the  Proverbs  which  came  to  the  editor 
from  all  quarters  and  from  all  ages  ought  to  be  presented 
in  the  literary  form.  But  no.  The  learned  Sheriff  excuses 
divergency  in  Gaelic  orthography  on  the  plea  *  that  William 
Shakespeare  spelled  his  own  great  name  in  several  ways, 
and  that  even  Samuel  Johnson's  English  spellings  are  not 
all  followed  now  ' — a  plea  which  should  have  been  addressed 
to  Englishmen,  not  to  Highlanders.  For  several  of  his 
deviations  from  the  norm  in  spelling  and  accent  he  leans  on 
this  authority  or  that,  as  if  one  could  possibly  frame  an 
original  permutation  in  Gaelic  script.  For  two  innovations 
the  author  enters  a  special  defence:  'seo  is  chosen  for  so 
because  it  more  correctly  represents  the  sound  sho,  the 
common  pronunciation  of  the  word  in  the  Highlands.  For 
the  same  reason  I  have  invariably  substituted  sid  for  snd, 
and  dhsiibh  for  dhoibh,  the  former  being  the  pronunciation 
of  Inverness-shire,  which  I  naturally  preferred  to  that  of 
Argyllshire.'  The  genial  Sheriff  ought  to  have  remembered 
the  shrewd  advice  of  the  old  judge,  '  Give  your  decision,  but 
not  your  reasons  for  it.'  As  it  happens,  dhoibh  is  not  heard 
in  Argyll  or  Inverness,  while  sid  and  sud  are  used  in  both 
counties.     And  surely  if  it  was  necessary  to  add  fifty  per 


t 


OETHOGEAPHY  OF  SCOTTISH  GAELIC         15 

cent,  to  the  length  of  so,  in  order  to  represent  properly  the 
sound  of  s,  thirty  per  cent,  might  be  ceded  to  sid  to  secure 
the  same  privilege  for  d,  for  sid  sounds  by  our  system  si/ ; 
the  proper  sound  would  be  spelled  siod. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  influence  and  example  of 
these  two  men,  capable,  educated,  cultured,  of  great  charm 
of  mind  and  manner,  and  of  position  in  society,  are  largely 
responsible  for  recent  eccentricities  in  Gaelic  orthography 
which  would  have  covered  us  with  ridicule  if  our  language 
was  read  by  educated  foreigners  and  considered  worthy  of 
notice.  So  far  as  I  have  observed,  the  Rev.  A.  Maclean 
Sinclair,  our  most  capable  and  fertile  author  beyond  the 
seas,  is  the  only  writer  among  the  reformers  of  Gaelic 
orthography  who  has  advocated  phonetic  spelling  on  a 
large  scale.  It  is,  I  think,  safe  to  say  that  had  he  lived 
in  this  country  Mr.  Sinclair  would  not  be  so  sanguine. 
A  phonetic  system  was  powerfully  advocated  for  English 
a  few  years  ago  ;  and  a  strong  committee  to  reform  English 
orthography  has  recently  been  set  up,  with  what  result  it 
would  be  profitless  to  anticipate.  But  a  change  in  Eng- 
lish orthography  on  a  phonetic  or  other  basis  would 
be  much  easier  of  accomplishment  than  in  Gaelic.  For 
one  thing,  there  is  among  educated  men  a  pretty  close 
approach  to  uniformity  of  pronunciation  in  English. 
Besides,  the  most  ardent  reformer  of  English  orthography 
knows  the  present  norm,  and  is  content  to  abide  by  it 
until  a  change  is  agreed  upon.  Neither  of  these  conditions 
obtains  among  us.  Mr.  Maclean  Sinclair  might  find  a 
competent  Gaelic  speller,  but  not  a  representative  speaker 
whose  sounds  would  be  accepted  by  his  neighbours.  Take, 
e,g,,  the  sound  of  small-r.  Over  a  wide  field  ir  or  ri  fairly 
represents  it.  But  in  Tiree  and  the  Outer  Isles  the  sound 
is  rather  that  of  initial  y.  Over  the  half  of  Lewis  it  is  a 
lisped  z,  while  in  St.  Kilda  the  small-r  becomes  small-ZZ. 
Not  only  so.  Mr.  Sinclair,  as  it  seems  to  me,  has  forgotten, 
like  Dr.  Stewart  before  him,  that  in  polysyllabic  words 
the  exact  sound  of  a  consonant  is  in  Gaelic  indicated  by 


16  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

the  vowel  that  follows  it,  not  by  that  which  precedes. 
He  writes,  e,g,,  the  personal  name  Lachlan,  Lachinn,  The 
broad  ch  sound,  unless  we  overturn  our  whole  system,  is  here 
no  longer  indicated.  Further,  even  Lach(a)inn  is  not  the 
nominative  form,  but  an  oblique  case,  of  which  the  proper 
nominative,  Lachann,  is  not  only  alive  but  kicking.  More- 
over, as  the  English  form  shows,  Lachann  itself  is  but  a 
degraded  form  of  Lachlann,  also  a  living  form.  And, 
finally,  Lsichlann  is  but  the  modern  form  of  the  still  older, 
but  now  disused,  Lochlann, 

No.  The  way  of  reform  of  Gaelic  orthography,  if  it  ever 
comes,  does  not  point  in  that  direction.  But  pending  its 
arrival  each  of  us  can  do  somewhat  to  remove  the  discredit 
that  attaches  to  present-day  usage.  Is  it  too  much  to  ask 
Gaelic  authors  to  master  the  present  standard  before  they 
begin  to  print?  They  spell  English  correctly,  pronounce  it  as 
they  may.  Why  not  be  equally  accurate  in  Gaelic  ?  The 
standard  is  theirs,  framed  at  least  fifteen  hundred  years  ago, 
and  with  specimens  still  preserved  from  700  a.d.  downwards. 
It  is  surely  worthy  of  our  regard,  if  not  of  our  reverence. 
Is  it  too  much  to  ask  them  to  adhere  to  it,  at  least  in  those 
cases  where  we  all  pronounce  alike  ?  And  even  when  our 
sounds  differ,  should  we  not  write  in  the  normal  way  when 
the  norm  has  living  usage  to  back  it  ?  If  we  agree  to  do  so, 
we  effect  a  great  deal.     For  example : 

(1)  The  word  maith  is  sounded  math  over  a  wide  dis- 
trict, and  one  sees  it  often  written  so.  But  maith  is  an 
t-stem,  and  is  sounded  meath  over  an  equally  wide  area. 
The  literary  form  is  here  the  correct  form.  Tigh  has  in- 
variably the  broad-^  sound,  and  in  some  localities  an  a  sound 
follows.  In  other  districts  the  sound  is  o  rather  than  a — 
toigh  rather  than  taigh.  One  would  say  of  tigh  as  of  5o, 
leave  ill  alone.  It  is  common  knowledge  that  rd  becomes  rr 
among  us,  so  we  write  nadurra  for  nadurc^a,  with  many 
others.  But  how  many  would  be  ready  to  extend  the  pho- 
netic form  into  such  phrases  as  da-orr-eug  for  da  uair  dheug, 
urr  h-aia  for  air  fais,  and  so  forth  ? 


OETHOGEAPHY  OF  SCOTTISH  GAELIC        17 

(2)  We  have  in  Gaelic,  because  of  external  influences, 
raised  the  oblique  case  of  a  large  number  of  nouns  and 
adjectives  permanently  into  the  nominative.  Where  we 
have  all  done  so,  tliere  is  no  difficulty.  We  write  beinn, 
cill  and  many  more  instead  of  the  older  be(a)nn,  ce(a)ll, 
just  as  we  write  cas  and  that  group  for  the  older  cos,  and 
properly  so.  But  some  districts  have  advanced  in  this 
direction  farther  than  others.  Fallain  is  the  oblique  case 
of  fallan  ;  gobhainn  of  gobha  ;  and  gnothaich  of  gnothach. 
The  old  nominatives  of  these,  as  of  many  others,  are  still  in 
living  use,  and  ought  to  be  so  written. 

(3)  A  comparatively  easy  sound  -str-  has  been  substituted, 
•  where  Norse  and  English  influences  predominated,  for  the 

more  difficult  Gaelic  sr, — struih  for  sruth  and  even  strdin  for 
srdn.     The  Gaelic  forms  ought  surely  to  be  preferred. 

(4)  In  several  cases  we  have  mis-spellings,  owing  to 
ignorance  of  old  forms  or  from  false  etymologies.  In 
nearly  all  such  cases.  Dr.  MacBain's  Dictionary  wiU  help  to 
keep  us  right. 

The  only  limitations  of  importance  that  occur  to  me  are 
these  two  : 

(1)  In  writing  lyric  verse  the  ring  of  the  line  must  be 
preserved.  The  poet  wiU  use,  and  ought  to  use,  not  only 
such  double  forms  as  eun  and  ian,  beul  and  bial,  but  all 
local  sounds  that  lend  grace  and  melody  to  his  rhymes. 

(2)  When  illustrating  dialect,  or  registering  dialectal 
material  for  linguistic  and  historical  purposes,  not  only  the 
words  and  idioms  but  the  sounds  to  their  minutest  shades 
ought  to  be  recorded  with  strict  accuracy.  This  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  writing  down  and  printing  every 
sound  which  one  hears  from  an  old  cailleach's  mouth  in  one 
form,  to  be  followed  by  the  same  sound  when  heard  the  next 
time  in  a  different  form,  as  the  untrained  invariably  do. 

If  our  writers  would  follow  some  such  mode  of  procedure 
as  this,  the  reformers  of  Gaelic  orthography  could  wait 
for  their  Millennium  with  composure. 

VOL.  VT.  B 


18  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

THE  FIANS  OF  KNOCKFAREEL 

(A  Ross-shire  Legend) 
Donald  A.  Mackenzie. 

On  steep  Knockfarrel  had  the  Fians  made, 

For  safe  retreat,  a  high  and  strong  stockade 

Around  their  dwellings.     And  when  Winter  fell 

And  o'er  Strathpeffer  laid  its  barren  spell — 

When  days  were  bleak  with  storm,  and  nights  were  drear 

And  dark  and  lonesome,  well  they  loved  to  hear 

The  songs  of  Ossian  peerless  and  sublime — 

Their  blind  grey  bard,  grown  old  before  his  time 

Lamenting  for  his  son — the  young,  the  brave 

Oscar  who  fell  beside  the  western  wave 

In  Gavra's  bloody  and  unequal  fight. 

Round  Ossian  would  they  gather  in  the  night, 

Beseeching  him  for  song  .  .  .  And  when  he  took 

His  clarsach,  from  the  magic  strings  he  shook 

A  maze  of  trembling  music,  falling  sweet 

As  mossy  waters  in  the  summer  heat. 

And  soft  as  fainting  moor-winds  when  they  leave 

The  fume  of  myrtle,  on  a  dewy  eve, 

Round  flushed  and  teeming  tarns  that  all  night  hear 

Low  elfin  pipings  in  the  woodlands  near — 

'Twas  thus  he  sang  of  love,  and  in  a  dream 

The  fair  maids  sighed  to  hear.     But  when  his  theme 

Was  the  long  chase  that  Finn  and  all  his  men 

Followed  with  lightsome  heart  from  glen  to  glen — 

His  song  was  free  as  morn,  and  clear  and  loud 

As  skylarks  carolling  below  a  cloud 

In  sweet  June  weather  .  .  .  And  they  heard  the  fall 

Of  mountain  streams,  the  huntsman's  windy  call 

Across  the  heaving  hills,  the  baying  hound 

Among  the  rocks,  while  echoes  answered  round — 

They  heard,  and  shared  the  gladness  of  the  chase. 

He  sang  the  glories  of  the  Fian  race, 
Whose  fame  is  flashed  through  Alba  far  and  wide — 
Their  valorous  deeds  he  sang  with  joy  and  pride,  .  .  . 
When  their  dark  foemen  from  the  west  came  o'er 
The  rugged  hills,  and  when  on  Croumba's  shore 


THE  FIANS  OF  KNOCKFAREEL  19 

The  Viking  hordes  descending,  fought  and  fled — 
And  when  in  single  combat  Conn  the  Red 
By  one-eyed  GoU  was  slain.     Of  Finn  he  sang 
And  Dermaid,  while  the  clash  of  conflict  rang 
In  billowy  music  through  the  heroes'  hall — 
And  many  a  Fian  gave  the  battle-call 
When  Ossian  sang. 

Haggard  and  old,  with  slow 
And  falt'ring  steps,  went  Winter  through  the  snow 
As  if  its  dreary  round  would  ne'er  be  done — 
The  last  long  winter  of  their  days  — begun 
Ere  yet  the  latest  flush  of  falling  leaves 
Had  faded  in  the  breath  of  chilling  eves ; 
Nor  ended  in  the  days  of  longer  light, 
When  dawn  and  eve  encroached  upon  the  night — 
A  weary  time  it  was  !     The  long  strath  lay 
Snow-wreathed  and  pathless,  and  from  day  to  day 
The  tempests  raved  across  the  low'riug  skies. 
And  they  grew  weak  and  pale,  with  hollow  eyes, 
The  while  their  stores  shrank  low,  waiting  the  dawn 
Of  that  sweet  season  when  through  woodlands  wan 
Fresh  flowers  flutter  and  the  wild  birds  sing — 
For  winter  on  the  forelock  of  the  spring 
Its  icy  fingers  laid.     The  huntsmen  pined 
In  their  dim  dwellings,  wearily  confined, 
While  the  loud,  hungry  tempest  held  its  sway — 
The  red-eyed  wolves  grew  bold  and  came  by  day, 
And  birds  fell  frozen  in  the  snow. 

Then  through 
The  trackless  strath  a  balmy  south-wind  blew 
To  usher  lusty  spring.     Lo  !  in  a  night 
The  snows  'gan  shrinking  upon  plain  and  height. 
And  morning  broke  in  brightness  to  the  sound 
Of  falling  waters,  while  a  peace  profound 
Possessed  the  world  around  them  and  the  blue 
Bared  heaven  above.  .  .  .  Ah  !  then  with  joy  each  one 
Made  meek  obeisance  to  the  rising  sun. 

Three  days  around  Knockfarrel  they  pursued 
The  chase  across  the  hills  and  through  the  wood. 
Round  Ussie  Loch  and  Dingwall's  soundless  shore ; 
But  meagre  were  the  burdens  that  they  bore 
At  even  to  their  dwellings.     To  the  west 
They  hastened  on  a  drear  and  bootless  quest — 
'  But  sorrow  not,'  said  Finn,  when  all  dismayed 


20  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

With  weary  steps  they  turned  to  their  stockade, 
'  To-morrow  will  we  hunt  towards  the  east 
To  high  Dunskaith,  and  then  make  gladsome  feast 
By  night  when  we  return.' 

Or  ever  morn 
Had  broken,  Finn  arose,  and  on  his  horn 
Blew  loud  the  huntsman's  blast  that  round  the  ben 
Was  echoed  o'er  and  o'er.  .  .  .  Then  all  his  men 
Gathered  about  him  in  the  dusk,  nor  knew 
What  dim  forebodings  filled  his  heart  and  drew 
His  brows  in  furrowed  care.     His  eyes  agleam 
Still  stared  upon  the  horrors  of  a  dream 
Of  evil  omen  that  in  vain  he  sought 

To  solve.  .  .  .  His  voice  came  faint  from  battling  thought 
As  he  to  Garry  spake — '  Be  thou  the  ward, 
Strong  son  of  Morna :  who,  like  thee,  can  guard 
Our  women  from  all  peril !  .  .  .  Garry  turned 
From  Finn  in  sullen  silence,  for  he  yearned 
To  join  the  chase  once  more.     In  stature  he 
Was  least  of  all  the  tribe,  but  none  could  be 
More  fierce  in  conflict,  fighting  in  the  van, 
Than  that  grim,  wolfish,  and  misshapen  man ! 

Then  Finn  to  Caoilte  spake  and  gave  command 

To  hasten  forth  before  the  Fian  band — 

The  King  of  Scouts  was  he !    And  like  the  deer 

He  sped  to  find  if  foemen  had  come  near — 

Fierce,  swarthy  hillmen,  waiting  at  the  fords 

For  combat  eager,  or  red  Viking  hordes 

From  out  the  northern  isles.  ...  In  Alba  wide 

No  runner  could  keep  pace  by  Caoilte's  side. 

And  ere  the  Fians,  following  in  his  path, 

Had  wended  from  the  deep  and  dusky  strath, 

He  swept  o'er  Clyne,  and  heard  the  awesome  owls 

That  hoot  afar  and  near  in  woody  Foulis. 

And  he  had  reached  the  slopes  of  fair  Rosskeen 

Ere  Finn  by  Fyrish  came. 

The  dawn  broke  green — 
For  the  high  huntsman  of  the  morn  had  flung 
His  mantle  o'er  his  back  :  stooping,  he  strung 
His  silver  bow ;  then  rising,  bright  and  bold, 
He  shot  a  burning  arrow  of  pure  gold 
That  rent  the  heart  of  Night. 

As  far  behind 
The  Fians  followed,  Caoilte,  like  the  wind. 


THE  FIANS  OF  KNOCKFAKREL  21 

Sped  on — yon  son  of  Konan — o'er  the  wide 

And  marshy  moor,  and  'thwart  the  mountain-side, — 

By  Delny's  shore  far-ebbed,  and  wan,  and  brown, 

And  through  the  woods  of  beauteous  Balnagown, 

The  roaring  streams  he  vaulted  on  his  spear. 

And  foaming  torrents  leapt,  as  he  drew  near 

The  sandy  slopes  of  Nigg.     He  climbed  and  ran 

Till  high  above  Dunskaith  he  stood  to  scan 

The  outer  ocean  for  the  Viking  ships. 

Peering  below  his  hand,  with  panting  lips 

Agape,  but  wide  and  empty  lay  the  sea 

Beyond  the  barrier  crags  of  Cromarty, 

To  the  far  sky-line  lying  blue  and  bare — 

For  no  red  pirate  sought  as  yet  to  dare 

The  gloomy  hazards  of  the  fitful  seas, 

The  gusty  terrors,  and  the  treacheries 

Of  fickle  April  and  its  changing  skies — 

And  while  he  scanned  the  waves  with  curious  eyes. 

The  sea-wind  in  his  nostrils,  who  had  spent 

A  long  bleak  winter  in  Knockfarrel  pent 

Over  the  snow-wreathed  strath  and  buried  wood, 

A  sense  of  freedom  tingled  in  his  blood — 

The  large  life  of  the  ocean,  heaving  wide. 

His  heart  possessed  with  gladness  and  with  pride. 

And  he  rejoiced  to  be  alive.  .  .  .  Once  more 

He  heard  the  drenching  waves  on  that  rough  shore 

Raking  the  shingles,  and  the  sea-worn  rocks 

Sucking  the  brine  through  bared  and  lapping  locks 

Of  bright  brown  tangle,  while  the  shelving  ledges 

Poured  back  the  swirling  waters  o'er  their  edges ; 

And  billows  breaking  on  a  precipice 

In  spouts  of  spray,  fell  spreading  like  a  fleece. 

Sullen  and  sunken  lay  the  reef,  with  sleek 
And  foaming  lips,  before  the  flooded  creek. 
Deep-bunched  with  arrowy  weed,  its  green  expanse 
Wind-wrinkled  and  translucent.  ...  A  bright  trance 
Of  sun-flung  splendour  lay  athwart  the  wide 
Blue  ocean  swept  with  loops  of  silvern  tide 
Heavily  heaving  in  a  long  slow  swell. 

A  lonely  fisher  in  his  coracle 

Came  round  a  headland,  lifted  on  a  wave 

That  bore  him  through  the  shallows  to  his  cave, 

Nor  other  being  he  saw. 


22  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

The  birds  that  flew 
Clamorous  about  the  cliffs,  and  diving  drew 
Their  prey  from  bounteous  waters,  on  him  cast 
Cold  beady  eyes  of  wonder,  wheeling  past 
And  sliding  down  the  wind. 

II 

The  warm  sun  shone 
On  blind,  grey  Ossian  musing  all  alone 
Upon  a  knoll  before  the  high  stockade. 
When  Oscar's  son  came  nigh.     His  hand  he  laid 
On  the  boy's  curls,  and  then  his  fingers  strayed 
Over  the  face  and  round  the  tender  chin — 
'Be  thou  as  brave  as  Oscar,  wise  as  Finn,' 
Said  Ossian  with  a  sigh.     '  Nay,  I  would  be 
A  bard,'  the  boy  made  answer,  '  like  to  thee.' 
'  Alas  !  my  son,'  the  gentle  Ossian  said. 
My  song  was  born  in  sorrow  for  the  dead  !  .  .  . 
0  may  such  grief  as  Ossian's  ne'er  be  thine  ! — 
If  thou  wouldst  sing,  may  thou  below  the  pine 
Murmuring,  thy  dreams  conceive,  and  happy  be 
Nor  hear  but  sorrow  in  the  breaking  sea 
And  death-sighs  on  the  gale.     Alas  !  my  song 
That  rose  in  sorrow  must  survive  in  wrong — 
My  life  is  spent  and  vain — a  day  of  thine 
Were  better  than  a  long  dark  year  of  mine.  .  .  . 
But  come,  my  son — so  lead  me  by  the  hand — 
To  hear  the  sweetest  harper  in  the  land — 
The  wild,  free  wind  of  spring ;  all  o'er  the  hills 
And  under  let  us  go,  by  tuneful  rills 
We  '11  wander,  and  my  heart  shall  sweetened  be 
With  echoes  of  the  moorland  melody, — 
My  clarsach  wilt  thou  bear.'    And  so  went  they 
Together  from  Knockfarrel.     Long  they  lay 
Within  the  woods  of  Brahan,  and  by  the  shore 
Of  silvery  Conon  wended,  crossing  o'er 
The  ford  at  Achilty,  where  Ossian  told 
The  tale  of  Finn  who  there  had  slain  the  bold 
Black  Arky  in  his  youth.     And  ere  the  tale 
Was  ended  they  had  crossed  to  Tarradale, 
Where  dwelt  a  daughter  of  an  ancient  race, 
Deep-learned  in  lore  and  with  the  gift  to  trace 
The  thread  of  life  in  the  dark  web  of  fate. 
And  she  to  Ossian  cried,  *  Thou  comest  late, 
Too  late,  alas !  this  day  of  all  dark  days— 


p 


THE  FIANS  OF  KNOCKFAEREL  23 

Knockfarrel  is  before  me  all  ablaze — 
A  fearsome  vision  flaming  to  mine  eyes — 
0  beating  heart  that  bleeds  !  I  hear  the  cries 
Of  those  that  perish  in  yon  high  stockade — 
0  many  a  tender  lad,  and  lonesome  maid, 
Sweet  wife  and  sleeping  babe  and  hero  old — ■ 
0  Ossian,  couldst  thou  see — 0  child,  behold 
Yon  ruddy  closing  clouds  ...  so  falls  the  fate 
Of  all  the  tribe  .  .  .  alas  !  thou  comest  late.'  .  .  . 

Ill 

When  Ossian  from  Knockfarrel  went,  a  band 
Of  merry  maidens,  trooping  hand  in  hand. 
Came  forth,  with  laughing  eyes  and  flowing  hair, 
To  share  the  freedom  of  the  morning  air  ; 
Adown  the  steep  they  went,  and  through  the  wood 
Where  Garry  splintered  logs  in  sullen  mood — 
Pining  to  join  the  chase  !     His  wrath  he  wrought 
Upon  the  trees  that  morn,  as  if  he  fought 
Against  a  hundred  foemen  from  the  west, 
Till  he  grew  weary  and  was  fain  to  rest. 

The  maids  were  wont  to  shower  upon  his  head 
Their  merry  taunts,  and  oft  from  them  he  fled  ; 
For  of  their  quips  and  jests  he  had  more  fear 
Than  e'er  he  felt  before  a  foeman's  spear — 
And  so  he  chose  to  be  alone. 

The  air 
Was  heavily  laden  with  the  odour  rare 
Of  deep  wind-shaken  fir-trees,  breathing  sweet, 
As  through  the  wood  the  maids  with  silent  feet 
Went  treading  needled  sward,  in  light  and  shade. 
Now  bright,  now  dim,  like  flow'rs  that  gleam  and  fade, 
And  ever  bloom  and  ever  pass  away.  .  .  . 

Upon  a  fairy  hillock  Garry  lay 

In  sunshine  fast  asleep  :  his  head  was  bare, 

And  the  wind  rippling  through  his  golden  hair 

Laid  out  the  seven  locks  that  were  his  pride. 

Which  one  by  one  the  maids  securely  tied 

To  tether-pins,  while  Garry,  breathing  deep. 

Moaned  low  and  moved  about  in  troubled  sleep. 

Then  to  a  thicket  all  the  maidens  crept. 

And  raised  the  Call  of  Warning.  .  .  .  Garry  leapt 


24  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

From  dreams  that  boded  ill,  with  sudden  fear 

That  a  fierce  band  of  foemen  had  come  near — 

The  seven  fetters  of  his  golden  hair 

He  wrenched  off  as  he  leapt,  and  so  laid  bare 

A  shredded  scalp  of  ruddy  wounds  that  bled 

With  bitter  agony.  .  .  .  The  maidens  fled 

With  laughter  through  the  wood,  and  climbed  the  path 

Of  steep  Knockfarrel.     Fierce  was  Garry's  wrath 

When  he  perceived  who  wrong'd  him.     With  a  shriek, 

That  raised  the  eagles  from  the  mountain  peak, 

He  shook  his  spear,  and  ran  with  stumbling  feet, 

And  sought  for  vengeance  speedy  and  complete — 

The  lust  of  blood  possessed  him,  and  he  swore 

To  slay  them.  .  .  .  But  they  shut  the  oaken  door 

Ere  he  had  reached  that  high  and  strong  stockade — 

From  whence,  alas  !  nor  wife,  nor  child,  nor  maid 

Came  forth  again. 


IV 

Soft-couched  upon  a  bank 
Lay  Caoilte  on  the  cliff-top,  while  he  drank 
The  sweetness  of  the  morning  air,  that  brought 
A  spell  of  dreamful  ease  and  pleasant  thought, 
With  mem'ries  from  the  deeps  of  other  years 
When  Dermaid,  unforgotten  by  his  peers, 
And  Oscar,  fair  and  young,  went  forth  with  mirth 
A-hunting  o'er  the  hills  around  the  firth 
On  such  an  April  morn.  .  .  . 

He  leapt  to  hear 
The  Fians  shouting  from  a  woodland  near 
Their  hunting-call.     Then  swift  he  sped  apace. 
With  bounding  heart,  to  join  the  gladsome  chase ; 
Stooping  he  ran,  with  poised,  uplifted  spear. 
As  through  the  woods  approached  the  nimble  deer 
That  swerved  beholding  him.     With  startled  toss 
Of  antlers  down  the  slope  it  fled,  to  cross 
The  open  vale  before  him.  ...  To  the  west, 
The  Fians,  merging  from  the  woodland,  pressed 
To  head  it  shoreward.  ...  All  the  fierce  dogs  bayed 
With  hungry  ardour,  and  the  deer,  dismayed. 
With  foaming  nostrils  leapt,  and  strove  to  flee 
Towards  the  deep,  dark  woods  of  Calrossie,    . 
But  Caoilte,  fresh  from  resting,  was  more  fleet, 


THE  TIANS  OF  KNOCKFAREEL  25 

Than  deer  or  dogs,  and  sped  with  naked  feet, 

Until  upon  a  loose  and  sandy  bank, 

Plunging  his  spear  into  the  smoking  flank, 

Its  flight  he  stayed.  ...  He  stabbed  it  as  it  sank, 

The  life-blood  spurting ;  and  he  saw  it  die 

Or  ever  dog  or  huntsman  had  come  nigh. 

Then  eager  feast  they  made  ;  and  after  long 
And  frequent  fast  of  winter,  they  grew  strong 
As  they  had  been  of  old.     And  of  their  fare 
The  lean  and  scrambling  hounds  had  ready  share. 

Nor  over-fed  they  in  their  merry  mood, 

But  set  to  hunt  again,  and  through  the  wood 

Scattered  with  eager  pace,  ere  yet  the  sun 

Had  climbed  to  highest  noon  ;  for  lo  !  each  one 

Had  mem'ry  of  the  famished  cheeks  and  white 

Of  those  who  waited  their  return  by  night. 

In  steep  Knockfarrel's  desolate  stockade — 

Oh,  many  a  beauteous  and  betrothed  maid 

And  mothers  nursing  babes,  and  warriors  lying 

In  winter-fever's  spell,  the  old  men  dying. 

And  slim  fair  lads  who  waited  to  acclaim, 

With  gladsome  shout,  the  huntsmen  when  they  came 

With  burdens  of  the  chase.  ...  So  they  pursued 

The  hunt  till  eve  was  nigh.     In  Geanies  wood 

Another  deer  they  slew.  .  .  . 

Caoilte  who  stood 
On  a  high  ridge  alone  .  .  .  with  eager  eyes 
Scanning  the  prospect  wide  ...  in  mute  surprise 
Saw  rising  o'er  Knockfarrel  a  dark  cloud 
Of  thick  and  writhing  smoke.  .  .  .  Then  fierce  and  loud 
Upon  his  horn  he  blew  the  warning  blast — 
From  out  the  woods  the  Fians  hastened  fast — 
Lo !  when  they  stared  towards  the  western  sky. 
They  saw  their  winter-dwelling  blazing  high. 

Then  fear  possessed  them  for  their  own,  and  grief 

Unutterable.     And  thus  spake  their  wise  chief. 

To  whom  came  knowledge  and  the  swift  sure  thought — 

'  Alas  !  alas  !    An  enemy  hath  wrought 

Black  vengeance  on  our  kind.     In  yonder  gleam 

Of  fearsome  flame,  the  horrors  of  my  dream 

Are  now  accomplished — all  we  loved  and  cherished, 

And  sought,  and  fought  for,  in  that  pyre  hath  perished ! 


26  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

White-lipped  they  heard.  .  .  .  Then,  wailing  loud,  they  ran, 

Following  the  nimble  Caoilte  man  by  man. 

Towards  Knockfarrel ;  leaping  on  their  spears 

O'er  marsh  and  stream.     MacReithin,  blind  with  tears, 

Tumbled  or  leapt  into  a  swollen  flood 

That  swept  him  to  the  sea.     But  no  man  stood 

To  help  or  mourn  him,  for  the  eve  grew  dim — 

And  some  there  were  indeed  who  envied  him. 


As  snarls  the  wolf  at  bay  within  the  wood 

Or  huntsmen  and  their  hounds,  so  Garry  stood 

Raging  before  the  women  who  had  made 

Secure  retreat  within  the  high  stockade ; 

He  cursed  them  all,  and  their  loud  laughter  rang 

More  bitter  to  his  heart  than  e'en  the  pang 

Of  his  fierce  wounds.     Then  while  his  streaming  blood 

Half  blinded  him,  he  hastened  to  the  wood, 

And  a  small  tree  upon  his  shoulders  bore. 

And  fixed  it  fast  against  the  oaken  door. 

That  none  might  issue  forth. 

Then  once  again 
Towards  the  wood  he  turned,  but  all  in  vain 
The  women  waited  his  return  till  they 
Grew  weary,  for  in  pain  and  wrath  he  lay 
In  a  close  thicket,  brooding  o'er  his  shame, 
And  panting  for  revenge. 

Then  Finn's  wife  came 
To  set  the  women  to  the  wheel  and  loom. 
With  angry  chiding ;  and  a  heavy  gloom 
Fell  on  them  all.     '  Who  knoweth,'  thus  she  spake, 
•  What  evil  may  the  Fian  men  o'ertake 
This  day  of  evil  omens.     Yester-night 
I  saw  the  pale  ghost  of  my  sire  with  white 
And  trembling  lips.  ...  At  morn  before  my  sight 
A  raven  darted  from  the  wood  and  slew 
A  brooding  dove.  .  .  .  What  fear  is  mine  !  ...  for  who 
Would  us  defend  if  our  fierce  foemen  came — 
When  Garry  is  against  us.  .  .  .  Much  I  blame 
Your  wanton  deed.'  .  .  .  The  women  heard  in  shame 
Nor  answer  made. 


THE  FIANS  OF  KNOCKFAEEEL  27 

The  sun  with  fiery  gleam 
Scattered  the  feath'ry  clouds,  as  in  a  dream 
The  spirits  of  the  dead  are  softly  swept 
From  severed  visions  sweet.     A  low  wind  crept 
Around  with  falt'ring  steps,  and,  pausing,  sighed — 
Then  fled  to  murmur  from  the  mountain-side 
Amid  the  pine-tree  shade  ;  while  all  aglow 
Ben  Wyvis  bared  a  crest  of  shining  snow 
In  barren  splendour  o'er  the  slumbering  strath ; 
While  some  sat  trembling,  fearing  Garry's  wrath. 
Some  feared  the  coming  of  the  foe,  and  some 
Had  vague  forebodings  and  were  brooding  dumb, 
And  longed  to  greet  the  huntsmen.     Mothers  laid 
Their  babes  to  sleep,  and  many  a  gentle  maid 
Sighed  for  her  lover  in  that  lone  stockade ; 
And  one  who  sat  apart  with  pensive  eye, 
Thus  sang  to  hear  the  peewee's  plaintive  cry : — 

■  Feewee,  joeewee,  crying  sweet,  # 

Crying  early,  crying  late — 
Will  your  voice  be  never  weary 

Crying  for  your  mate  ? 
Other  hearts  than  thine  are  lonely, 
Other  hearts  must  wait. 

Peewee,  peewee,  I'd  be  flying 

O'er  the  hills  and  o'er  the  sea, 
Till  I  found  the  love  I  long  for, 

Wlieresoe'er  he  'd  be — 
Peewee  crying,  I'd  be  flying, 

Co^ild  I  fly  like  thee  I 

When  Garry,  who  had  stanched  his  wounds,  arose 
He  seized  his  axe,  and  'gan  with  rapid  blows 
To  fell  down  fir-trees.     Through  the  silent  strath 
The  hollow  echoes  rang.     With  fiendish  wrath 
He  made  resolve  to  heap  the  splintered  wood 
Against  the  door,  and  burn  the  hated  brood 
Of  his  tormentors  one  and  all.     He  hewed 
An  ample  pyre,  then  piled  it  thick  and  high. 
While  the  sun  sloping  to  the  western  sky 
Proclaimed  the  closing  of  that  fateful  day. 
But  the  doomed  women  little  dreamed  that  they 
Would  have  such  fearsome  end.  ...  As  Garry  lay 


28  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Rubbing  the  fire-sticks  till  they  'gan  to  glow- 
He  heard  a  Fian  mother  singing  low — 

Skep,  0  sUep,  I'll  sing  to  thee — 

Moolachie,  0  moolachie, 
Sleep,  0  sleep,  like  yon  grey  stone, 

Moolachie,  mine  own. 

Sleep,  0  sleep,  nor  sigh  nor  fret  ye, 
And  the  goblins  mil  not  get  ye, 

I  will  shield  ye,  I  will  pet  ye — 
Moolachie,  mine  own. 

The  mother  sang ;  the  gentle  babe  made  moan — 
And  Garry  heard  them  with  a  heart  of  stone.  .  .  . 
With  fiendish  laugh,  he  saw  the  leaping  flames 
Possess  the  pyre ;  and  heard  the  shrieking  dames 
And  maids  and  children,  wailing  in  the  gloom 
Of  smothering  smoke,  e'er  they  had  met  their  doom. 
Then  when  the  high  stockade  was  blazing  red, 
Ere  yet  their  cries  were  silenced,  Garry  fled 
And  westward  o'er  the  shouldering  hills  he  sped. 


VI 

A  broad  faint  twilight  lingered  to  unfold 
The  sun's  slow-dying  beams  of  tangled  gold. 
And  the  long,  billowy  hills,  in  gathering  shade. 
Their  naked  peaks  and  ebon  crags  displayed 
Sharp-rimmed  against  the  tender  heaven  and  pale ; 
And  misty  shadows  gathered  in  the  vale — 
When  Caoilte  to  Knockfarrel  came,  and  saw 
Amid  the  dusk,  with  sorrow  and  with  awe. 
The  ruins  of  their  winter  dwelling  laid 
In  smouldering  ashes ;  while  the  high  stockade 
Around  the  rocky  wall,  like  ragged  teeth, 
Was  crackling  o'er  the  melting  stones  beneath. 
Still  darting  flame,  and  flickering  in  the  breeze. 

He  sped  towards  the  wood,  and  through  the  trees 
Called  loud  for  those  who  perished.     On  his  fair 
And  gentle  spouse  he  called  in  his  despair. 
His  sweet  son,  and  his  sire,  whose  hair  was  white 
As  Wyvis  snow,  he  called  for  in  the  night. 
Full  loud  and  long  across  the  Strath  he  cried — 
The  echoes  mocked  him  from  the  mountain-side. 


THE  FIANS  OF  KNOCKFAREEL  29 

Ah  !  when  his  last  hope  faded  like  the  wave 

Of  twilight  ebbing  o'er  the  hills,  he  gave 

His  heart  to  utter  grief  and  deep  despair ; 

And  the  cold  stars  peered  down  with  pitiless  stare. 

While  sank  the  wind  in  silence  on  its  flight 

Through  the  dark  hollows  of  the  spacious  night ; 

And  distant  sounds  seemed  near.     In  his  dismay 

He  heard  a  Fian  calling  far  away. 

The  night-bird  answered  back  with  dismal  cry, 

Like  to  a  wounded  man  about  to  die — 

But  Caoilte's  lips  were  silent.  .  .  .  Once  again 

And  nearer,  came  the  voice  that  cried  in  vain, 

Then  swift  steps  climbed  Knockfarrel's  barren  steep, 

And  Alvin  called,  with  trembling  voice  and  deep, 

To  Caoilte,  crouching  low  with  bended  head, 

*  Who  liveth  ?'...'!  am  here  alone,'  he  said.  .  .  . 

Thus  Fian  after  Fian  came  to  share 

Their  bitter  grief,  in  silence  and  despair. 

All  night  they  kept  lone  watch,  until  the  dawn 

With  stealthy  fingers  o'er  the  east  had  drawn 

Its  dewy  veil  and  dim.     Then  Finn  arose 

From  deep  and  sleepless  brooding  oer  his  woes, 

And  spake  unto  the  Fians,  '  Who  shall  rest 

While  flees  our  evil  foeman  farther  west  1 — 

Arise  !'...'  But  who  hath  done  this  deed  ? '  they  sighed. 

And  Finn  made  answer,  'Garry.'  .  .  .  Then  they  cried 

For  vengeance  swift  and  terrible  and  leapt 

To  answer  Finn's  command. 

A  cold  wind  swept 
From  out  the  gates  of  morning,  moaning  loud. 
As  swift  they  hastened  forth.     A  ragged  shroud 
Of  gathering  tempest  o'er  Ben  Wyvis  cast 
A  sudden  gloom,  and  round  it,  falling  fast. 
It  drifted  o'er  the  darkened  slopes  and  bare. 
And  snow-flakes  swirled  in  the  chill  morning  air.— r- 
Then  o'er  the  sea  the  sun  leapt  large  and  bright. 
Scattering  the  storm.     And  moor  and  crag  lay  white 
As  westward  o'er  the  hills  the  Fians  all 
In  quest  of  Garry  sped. 

At  even-fall 
They  found  him.  ...  On  the  bald  and  rocky  side 
Of  steep  Scour  Vullin  Garry  lay  to  hide 
Within  a  cave,  which,  backward  o'er  the  snow. 


30  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

He  entered,  that  his  steps  might  seem  to  show 
He  had  fled  eastward  by  the  path  he  came. 
All  day  he  sought  to  flee  them  in  his  shame, 
Watching  from  lofty  crag  or  deep  ravine. 
And  crouching  in  the  heath  with  haggard  mein — 
He  sought  in  vain  to  hide  till  darkness  cast 
Its  blinding  cloak  betwixt  them. 

When  at  last 
Finn  cried,  *  Come  forth  thou  dog  of  evil  deeds, 
Nor  respite  seek ! '  .  .  .  His  limbs  like  windy  reeds 
Trembled  and  bent  beneath  him,  as  he  rose 
And  came  to  meet  his  friends  who  were  his  foes. 
Then  unto  Finn  he  spake  with  accents  meek, 
*  One  last  request  I  of  the  Fians  seek, 
Whom  I  have  loved  in  peace  and  served  in  strife.'— 
'Tis  thine,'  said  Finn,  'but  ask  not  for  thy  life. 
For  thou  art 'mong  the  Fians.'  .  .  .   'I  would  die,' 
Said  Garry,  '  with  my  head  laid  on  thy  thigh ; 
And  let  young  Alvin  take  thy  sword  that  he 
May  give  the  death  that  will  mine  honour  be.* 
'Twas  so  he  lay  to  die.  .  .  .  But  as  the  blade 
Swept  bright,  young  Alvin,  keen  for  vengeance,  swayed 
And  slipped  upon  the  sward.  .  .  .  And  his  fierce  blow 
That  Garry  slew,  the  Fian  chief  laid  low. — 
A  grievous  wound  was  gaping  on  his  thigh 
And  poured  his  life-blood  forth.  ...  A  low,  weird  cry 
The  great  Finn  gave  as  he  fell  back  and  swooned. — 
In  vain  they  strove  to  stanch  the  fearsome  wound. — 
His  life  ebbed  slowly  with  the  sun's  last  ray 
In  gathering  gloom.  .  .  .  And  when  in  death  he  lay, 
The  glory  of  the  Fians  passed  away. 


AN    OUTLINE   OF   BRETON   HISTORY 

Yvonne  Josse 

After  the  French  of  M.  de  Calan 

Brittany  is  a  peninsula  surrounded  on  three  side^  by  the 
sea.  It  is  the  sea  that  has  made  the  Breton  type.  It  is 
the  sea  that,  from  time  to  time,  has  given  trade,  and  through 
trade  a  little  wealth,   to   a  eoimtry  whose  granitic   and 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  BRETON  HISTORY  31 

schistous  soil,  of  but  moderate  fertility,  adapted  itself  only 
bo  a  pastoral  agriculture  none  too  lavish  in  its  return  for 
labour.  One  could  almost  say  that  it  is  incessant  contact 
with  the  sea  that  has*  turned  the  aspirations  of  the  Breton 
soul  towards  the  wide  and  limitless  realm  of  imagination. 
In  any  case  nothing  can  better  picture  our  generally  quiet 
and  sometimes  passionate  race  than  the  great  deep  which, 
under  a  deceptive  calm,  so  often  hides  violent  commotion. 
At  a  time  the  date  of  which  is  not  known,  our  country 
was  inhabited  by  savages  living  on  fishing  and  hunting,  and 
having  splintered  stones  for  their  only  tools  and  arms. 
Little  by  little  strangers  came  from  the  eastern  countries — 
people  who  reared  cattle  and  understood  agriculture. 
Their  arms  and  tools  were  mostly  of  polished  stone.  Later 
on,  foreign  trade  brought  them  a  few  metal  articles,  either 
of  bronze  or  of  gold.  Nothing  is  known  about  the  history 
of  those  men — not  even  their  name  and  the  language  they 
spoke.  We  can  say,  however,  that  if  they  were  not  civilised 
they  were  not  savages.  They  buried  their  dead  in  funeral 
chambers  made  of  flat  stones — dolmens — and  covered  with 
sand  or  gravel  so  as  to  form  tumuli.  On  the  tombs  and  in 
places  where  notable  events  had  taken  place,  where  we  now 
put  up  crosses,  they  erected  huge  stones — the  menhirs — 
in  homage  to  the  gods  ;  more  than  one  thousand  of  these 
monuments  are  to  be  seen  in  Brittany.  Four  or  five  hundred 
years  B.C.,  Brittany,  with  the  whole  of  Gaul,  was  conquered 
by  the  Celts.  These  were  warriors  organised  in  bands  or 
clans,  at  the  heads  of  which  were  the  chiefs  or  kings.  They 
knew  iron,  and  used  it  to  make  their  arms  and  tools.  At 
regular  intervals  of  time  the  land  belonging  to  each  clan 
was  divided  among  the  families  of  the  clan,  but  the  parts 
of  the  kings  and  nobles  were  nearly  always  the  same.  No 
people  of  antiquity  believed  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul 
more  firmly  than  the  Celts.  In  religious  matters  they 
obeyed  the  members  of  an  organisation  which  had  the 
monopoly  of  science  and  instruction,  and  in  case  of  war 
interposed   between   the   rival   clans   between   which   the 


32  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

country  was  divided.  These  Celts  spoke  nearly  the  same 
tongue  as  that  the  Irish,  Welsh  and  Bretons  are  now 
speaking. 

In  the  year  57  B.C.  the  Romans  invaded  Gaul.  Brittany 
was  then  inhabited  by  several  elans  called  Armoricans — 
people  living  near  the  sea.  Part  of  Maine  and  Normandy 
was  also  inhabited  by  the  Amoricans  ;  their  capital  was 
Vannes.  Those  clans  were  related  to  the  Celts  who  lived 
in  the  part  of  Gaul  situated  between  the  Seine  and  the 
Rhine,  and  also  to  the  Celts  who  were  in  Britain.  In  56, 
Caesar,  at  the  head  of  the  Romans,  made  a  victorious 
expedition  against  them.  Their  confederate  fleet  was 
destroyed  near  Vannes.  Notwithstanding,  they  went  on 
with  the  fight  for  five  years,  and  were  the  very  last  to 
submit  to  the  Romans.  The  Celtic  tongue  disappeared  as 
a  result  of  the  Roman  conquest.  Four  centuries  afterwards 
the  inhabitants  spoke  only  Latin.  The  Romans  substituted 
the  individual  property  of  the  rich  landowners  for  the 
collective  property  of  the  clan.  The  country  had  no  roads, 
and  they  made  some ;  there  were  no  towns,  and  they  built 
some.  At  that  time  Nantes,  Vannes,  Rennes  were  created. 
In  the  third  century  a.d.,  Christianity  was  preached  to  the 
Armoricans.  Nantes  was  the  first  town  to  be  evangelised. 
Two  brothers,  Tonatien  and  Rogatien,  were  martyred  during 
the  first  persecution.  When  Constantine  gave  the 
Christians  liberty  for  their  religion,  bishoprics  were  founded 
in  Brittany  at  Nantes,  Rennes  and  Vannes. 

Towards  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  when  Gaul  was 
invaded  and  conquered  by  barbarians  of  Germanic  race, 
Armorica  on  the  contrary  received  emigrants  of  Celtic  race. 
They  came  from  the  island  of  Britain,  and  had  been  con- 
quered by  the  Romans,  but  not  Latinised  by  them  as  were 
the  Celts  of  Gaul.  The  Britons  had  kept  their  habits,  their 
traditions,  and  their  language.  Armorica  became  Celtic 
again,  and  was  called  Brittany.  The  emigrations  of  the 
Britons  were  caused  by  the  ravages  of  the  Angles  and 
Saxons,  pagan  barbarians  of  Germanic  race,  who,  after 


^ 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  BRETON  HISTORY  33 

oTany  centuries  of  war,  conquered  and  subdued  the  whole 
island  of  Britain.  Many  of  the  Britons  who  wanted  to 
keep  their  Faith  and^  their  independence  were  obliged  to 
seek  refuge  elsewhere.  They  had  been  defeated,  but  these 
vanquished  ones  were  courageous  and  did  not  accept  the 
consequences  of  their  defeat.  They  were  neither  rejected 
nor  absorbed  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  to  which 
they  had  fled.  Instead,  the  Britons  gave  them  their  own 
political  and  religious  organisation,  and  also  their  traditions. 
One  part  of  the  territory,  even,  was  so  Brythonicised  that 
the  Breton  language  took  the  place  of  Latin.  For  more 
than  a  century  these  emigrants  continued  to  land  in 
Armorica  in  small  bands,  having  at  their  heads  either 
laymen  or  religious  chiefs.  The  territories  in  which  the 
former  settled  took  the  names  of  the  bands,  and  were 
called  '  pious  '  or  '  trefs  '  ;  or  the  religious  chiefs  took  them 
as  dominions,  and  they  were  then  called  '  lans.'  The  Breton 
emigrants  did  not  inhabit  all  the  country  now  called 
Brittany.  Towards  the  west  they  did  not  go  farther  than 
a  line  running  from  the  mouth  of  the  Couesnon  to  the  mouth 
of  the  Loire,  through  Roz,  Combourg,  Tinteniae  and 
Montfort — where  it  follows  the  Meu  and  the  Vilaine  up  to* 
the  confluence  of  the  Semnon,  only  taking  in  the  right  side 
of  the  river — Pleuchatel  and  Messac.  From  there  by 
Guemene,  Guenrouet  and  Cambon  the  line  goes  to  Montoir 
and  the  banks  of  the  river.  At  the  west  of  that  line  some 
cantons,  specially  Vannes  and  its  neighbourhood,  did  not 
submit  to  the  invaders.  On  the  left  bank  of  the  Loire,  Paim- 
bceuf,  Corsept,  Pornic,  St.  Brevin,  St.  Viaud,  there  are 
most  certain  evidences  of  the  Breton  colonisation  that  went 
as  far  as  the  Anglo-Norman  islands  (Jersey,  Guernsey,  etc.), 
the  Norman  canton  of  St.  Hilaire  du  Harcouet,  and  the 
Manceau  canton  of  Landivy.  In  the  Middle  Ages  Mont 
St.  Michel  was  looked  upon  as  Breton  territory. 

Armorica,  consequently,  was  inhabited  both  by  the 
Bretons  and  the  Gallo-Romans ;  the  last  were  faithful 
subjects   of   the   Prankish,   Merovingian,   or   Carlo vingian 

VOL.  VI.  c 


34  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

kings,  who  were  reigning  in  Gaul.  The  others  were  divided 
into  small  kingdoms  made  by  the  union  of  '  pious  '  or  '  lans.' 
— In  the  north,  Domnonee  ;  in  the  west,  Leon,  Poher, 
Comouailles  ;  and  in  the  south,  Broerec'h.  The  chiefs  of 
these  small  dominions  were  quite  independent,  and  were 
frequently  at  war  with  one  another.  They  recognised  in  a 
certain  measure  the  authority  of  the  Frankish  kings,  and 
irregularly  paid  them  some  sort  of  tribute,  although  from 
time  to  time  they  were  at  war  with  them.  Conomor  of 
Poher  was  defeated  and  killed  by  Judicael  of  Domnonee, 
whom  he  had  driven  away  from  his  kingdom,  and  who  got 
it  back  by  the  help  of  the  Frankish  king  Childebert.  Cono- 
bert  de  Broerec'h  was  defeated  and  killed  by  the  troops  of 
the  Frankish  king  Clotaire  (560).  Waroch  made  war  upon 
Chilperic,  and  Judicael  upon  Dagobert.  Charlemagne's 
armies  made  three  victorious  expeditions  into  Brittany — 
786,  799,  and  811 — and  his  son,  Louis  le  Debonnaire,  re- 
pressed the  two  revolts  of  Morvon  and  Guiomarc'h — 812  and 
824.  The  Bretons,  who  had-  no  share  in  the  revolts,  took 
a  great  part  in  the  wars  of  Charlemagne  with  the  Armoricans. 
It  was  with  soldiers  of  our  country  that  Ogier  Roland  and 
Oondeboeuf  became  illustrious.  The  older  Armoricans  and 
the  Bretons  had  quite  different  religious  organisations.  The 
former  obeyed  a  secular  clergy.  Their  great  saints  were 
bishops — Clair  and  Similien  at  Nantes,  Patern  at  Vannes, 
Melaine  at  Rennes.  The  Bretons  obeyed  regular  clergy 
living  in  abbeys  formed  of  small  cells,  where  each  monk 
spent  the  greatest  part  of  his  time  in  solitude.  Their  great 
saints  were  abbots — Brieuc,  Gu6nole,  and  Armel — or,  less 
frequently,  hermits,  Hke  Efflam,  Ronan,  Goneri. 

Brittany,  as  we  know  it  to-day,  was  constituted  by  the 
Breton  chief  Nomenoe  towards  the  middle  of  the  ninth 
century.  Nomenoe  was  at  first  an  imperial  functionary 
entrusted  by  Louis  le  Debonnaire  with  the  command  of  his 
countrymen ;  but  in  840,  when  he  saw  the  sons  of  the  late 
king  divide  the  Frankish  empire  between  themselves,  he 
thought  he  was  no  longer  obliged  to  respect  a  unity  others 


I 


1^^] 


N  OUTLINE  OF  BEETON  HISTORY  35 


d  not  respect.  In  843,  consequently,  he  took  arms. 
I:  is  victories,  and  the  victories  of  his  son  Erispoe  and  his 
n  jphew  Salomon,  obliged  Charles  le  Chauve  to  recognise' 
t"  le  independence  of  Brittany,  and  to  give  the  Breton  kings 
a  1  the  country  round  Nantes,  Rennes,  Avranches  and 
(  outances,  as  well  as  parts  of  Maine,  Anjou  and  Poitou. 
i  t  Redon,  and  at  Lehon  near  Dinan,  new  monasteries  were 
f  )unded.  Like  the  Frankish  monasteries,  those  of  Brittany, 
eld  and  new,  obeyed  Saint  Benedict's  rule,  and  eventually 
tbe  Breton  church  adopted  the  religious  organisation  of  the 
Frankish  church,  with  clearly  defined  dioceses  and  parishes 
principally  ministered  to  by  secular  clergy.  There  were  at 
that  time  nine  bishoprics  in  Brittany — Nantes,  Rennes, 
^k^annes,  Quimper,  Saint  Pol,  Treguier,  Saint  Brieuc,  Saint 
IVEalo  and  Dol.  The  Breton  kings  tried  to  make  an  arch- 
bishopric of  Dol,  but  without  success. 

Brittany  at  that  time  was  independent  and  prosperous, 
and  arts  and  belles-lettres  began  to  make  rapid  advance. 
They  had  progressed  but  little,  however,  before  they  began 
to  wither  beneath  the  ravages  of  the  Northmen.  Those 
pagan  pirates  from  Denmark  and  Norway  sailed  up  the 
rivers,  burning  everything  on  their  way,  and  generally 
falling  upon  the  monasteries,  whose  riches  tempted  their 
cupidity.  The  Bretons  were  unable  to  defend  themselves 
successfully,  for  upon  Salomon's  death  in  847  Brittany 
was  again  divided  into  petty  kingdoms,  independent  of 
each  other  and  weakened  by  civil  wars.  In  vain  did  Alain, 
Comte  de  Vannes,  win  a  great  victory  in  890.  At  the  very 
beginning  of  the  tenth  century,  a  few  years  after  the  settle- 
ment of  a  band  of  Northmen  in  the  part  of  the  country 
which,  after  them,  was  named  Normandy,  another  band 
settled  at  the  mouth  of  the  Loire,  and  from  there  oppressed 
the  whole  of  Brittany.  Many  noble  families  sought  shelter 
in  France  and  in  England.  The  monks  deserted  their 
abbeys,  and  fled  with  the  relics  of  their  saints  to  Paris, 
Picardy,  Burgundy,  and  everywhere  where  a  shelter  was 
offered  them.     The  dominion  of  the  pirates  lasted  more  than 


36  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

twenty-five  years.  The  first  attempt  at  enfranchisement 
did  not  succeed.  It  was  only  in  936  that  emigrants  return- 
ing to  Brittany  united  their  efforts  with  those  of  the  Bretons 
who  had  remained  in  their  country,  and  after  a  war  which 
lasted  for  some  three  years  the  Northmen  were  completely 
driven  out.  Alain  Barbe  Torte,  Comte  de  Nantes,  and 
Berengier,  Comte  de  Rennes,  were  the  heroes  of  the  deliver- 
ance of  their  country. 

After  the  Northmen  had  been  expelled,  war  broke  out 
between  Alain  and  Berengier,  each  of  them  wanting  the 
other  to  recognise  him  as  sovereign.  Their  successors 
continued  that  war  for  more  than  a  century.  The  neigh- 
bouring princes  availed  themselves  of  the  unrest  to  try  to 
impose  their  suzerainty  upon  the  Breton  chiefs.  Robert, 
Duke  of  Normandy,  obliged  Alain,  Comte  de  Rennes,  to  do 
him  homage,  and  the  Comtes  d'Anjou  obtained  a  similar 
mark  of  dependence  from  the  Comtes  de  Nantes. 

The  unity  of  Brittany  was  only  re-established  when 
Havoise,  heiress  to  the  Comtes  de  Rennes,  married  Hoel, 
Comte  de  Cornouailles  et  de  Nantes.  But  the  invasion 
and  the  civil  wars  had  favoured  the  ambition  of  the  neigh- 
bours of  Brittany,  and  had  allowed  them  to  extend  them- 
selves at  her  expense.  Only  the  territories  of  Rennes  and 
Nantes,  and  parts  of  Poitou  and  the  Pays  de  Retz  were  left 
to  the  Bretons  of  all  their  conquests  of  the  ninth  century. 
In  that  part,  at  least,  the  existence  of  a  nobility  of  Breton 
race  preserved  for  the  country  the  Breton  spirit  if  not  the 
Breton  tongue  and  customs.  Alain  Fergent  (1084-1112),  son 
of  Hoel  and  Havoise,  was  a  strong  monarch  :  he  repressed 
the  revolts  of  the  great  lords  ;  he  defeated  the  Duke  of 
Normandy  who  had  invaded  Brittany ;  and  he  had  a  great 
share  in  the  recovery  of  the  Holy  Land  from  the  Saracens. 
He  died,  a  monk,  in  the  monastery  at  Redon.  Brittany 
was  then  a  feudal  country  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  land  belonged 
to  great  lords  on  whom  depended  a  numerous  gentry  having 
free  peasants  as  farmers — for  Brittany  is  one  of  the  provinces 
of  France  where  villainage  was  most  promptly  abolished. 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  BRETON  HISTORY  37 

I:  usbandry  was  the  greatest  resource  of  the  inhabitants. 
]V  anufactures  had  not  as  yet  been  developed  very  extensively, 
t  lOugh  several  small  towns  carried  on  a  very  considerable 
t  ade  with  foreign  countries. 

After  the  Northmen  had  been  expelled,  many  old  abbeys 
r  )se  up  from  their  ruins — Landevennec,  Saint  Gildas,  Redon, 
€  be.  Others  were  founded  in  the  twelfth  century,  to  clear 
the  uncultivated  lands,  such  as  those  of  the  Cistercians  at 
]  Jegar,  St.  Aubin  de  Bois,  etc. ;  and  others  to  help  the 
secular  clergy  in  the  parishes,  such  as  those  of  the  Augustins 
^.nd  Premontres  at  Beauport,  Beaulieu,  etc.  More  than 
forty  abbeys  for  men  and  two  for  women  were  thus  founded. 
'  Brittany  had  then  great  literary  importance.  Abelard, 
ohe  greatest  French  philosopher  of  the  Middle  Ages ; 
Adam  de  Saint  Victor,  the  greatest  poet  in  the  Romance 
language  ;  and  GuiUaume  le  Breton,  one  of  the  greatest 
epic  poets  in  the  same  language,  were  all  Bretons.  The 
laments  our  poets  had  composed  for  the  Armorican 
bishops,  companions  of  Charles  Martel — Amile,  Moran,  etc. 
— for  the  companions  in  arms  of  Pepin  and  Charlemagne — 
Ogier,  Roland  ;  about  the  heroes  of  the  war  of  independence 
— Erispoe,  Salomon,  etc. — served  as  topics  for  the  great 
poems  the  French  called  '  Chansons  de  Geste,^  The  marvel- 
lous tales  of  King  Arthur,  his  knights  and  the  prophet 
Merlin,  which  the  Bretons  had  brought  back  from  their  stay 
in  Britain  in  the  tenth  century,  and  made  so  popular  all 
over  France,  were  the  beginning  of  the  '  Romans  de  la 
Table  Eonde,^ 

Brittany  thus  became  a  country  of  legends — the  scene 
of  fantastic  or  edifying  stories,  but  never  of  those  humorous 
or  obscene  tales  called  '  Fabliaux.^  That  did  not  prevent 
the  French  of  that  time  from  laughing  at  the  Bretons, 
whom  they  liked  to  represent  as  a  foolish  and  clownish 
people. 

Towards  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century,  the  inde- 
pendence of  Brittany  was  seriously  threatened.  Henry, 
Comte  d'Anjou,  had  become  King  of  England,  Comte  de 


38  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Poitou,  and  Due  de  Gascogne,  and  his  dominions  surrounded 
Brittany  on  all  sides.  He  insisted  on  the  marriage  of  his 
son  GeofiFrey  to  Constance,  heiress  to  Conan  the  Fourth, 
who,  too  weak  to  refuse,  gave  his  consent.  Henry  governed 
Brittany  very  roughly  till  his  son's  coming  of  age,  but  the 
prince  died  young  ;  and  his  son  Arthur,  hope  of  the  Bretons, 
was  made  a  prisoner  by  his  uncle,  John  Lackland,  King  of 
England,  in  1202,  when  he  was  but  fifteen  years  old.  He 
died  in  prison,  and  it  is  almost  certain  he  was  murdered. 
His  sister  Alix  married  a  relation  of  the  French  King — 
Pierre,  second  son  to  the  Comte  de  Dreux. 

The  Dreux  dynasty  gave  Brittany  four  princes,  who  in 
1297  received  the  title  of  Duke  :  they  wore  the  closed  crown 
like  kings,  and  swore  fidelity  to  the  Kings  of  France  standing 
and  without  bowing.  Under  their  reign  the  country  had  a 
century  of  prosperity  and  peace.  The  love  of  learning 
spread  throughout  Brittany,  and  several  colleges  were 
founded  in  Paris  for  the  Bretons  who  went  there  to  study. 
Saint  Ives  lived  at  that  time,  and  his  knowledge  and  virtue 
edified  and  were  the  admiration  of  everybody.  New 
religious  orders — the  Dominicans,  the  Franciscans  and  the 
Carmelites — settled  themselves  in  our  province — not  in  the 
country,  like  the  other  orders,  but  in  the  towns,  where  they 
gave  themselves  up  to  preaching  and  charitable  works. 

In  1341,  at  the  death  of  Jean  in.,  a  terrible  civil  war 
broke  out  between  Jeanne,  the  daughter  of  his  second 
brother,  and  his  third  brother  Jean,  Comte  de  Montfort, 
who  both  pretended  to  the  right  to  succeed  him.  The  war 
lasted  more  than  twenty  years,  and  covered  Brittany  with 
blood  and  ruin.  Jeanne  had  married  Charles  de  Blois, 
nephew  to  Philippe  vi..  King  of  France ;  and  as  Charles  was 
helped  by  his  uncle,  Jean  de  Montfort  called  the  English 
king  to  his  assistance.  The  strife  was  desperate.  The 
successive  captivity  of  the  two  chiefs  (Jean  was  made 
prisoner  at  Nantes,  Charles  at  the  battle  of  Auray)  did  not 
discourage  their  followers.  The  English  ravaged  the 
country  so  much  that  a  Breton  leader,  Jean  de  Beaumanoir, 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  BRETON  HISTOEY  39 

c  aallenged  thirty  of  their  knights  to  a  pitched  combat,  and 
•\  ith  twenty-nine  of  his  companions  utterly  vanquished  them. 
'^  'hat  was  the  ever-famous  '  Combat  des  Trente.'  At  last 
(yharles  de  Blois  was  defeated  and  killed  at  the  battle  of 
.  ^uray,  and  all  Brittany  recognised  Jean  iv.,  son  of  Jean  de 
tlontfort,  as  its  duke. 

That  prince  cared  only  for  England.  When  the  Bretons 
ound  that  he  wanted  to  go  to  war  with  France  they  sent 
aim  away,  but  when  they  saw  that  the  French  wanted  to 
bake  advantage  of  their  action  in  order  to  take  Brittany  for 
themselves,  they  all  agreed  to  call  their  Duke  back  again. 
His  son,  Jean  v.,  profited  by  the  lesson.  He  was  neither 
French  nor  English,  but  Breton,  and  while  war  ravaged 
France,  Brittany  (being  at  peace  and  well  governed)  became 
rich  with  the  fruits  of  industry,  and  the  trade  in  cloth  and 
linen.  Churches  and  castles  were  built  everywhere.  A 
university  was  created  at  Nantes  in  1461,  and  Brittany 
became  one  of  the  countries  where  printing  found  its  earliest 
home. 

The  awful  civil  war  that  had  just  taken  place  in  Brittany 
had  made  the  Bretons  the  best  soldiers  of  their  time.  The 
Kings  of  France  took  them  into  their  service  and  gave  them 
high  places.  Duguesclin,  Clisson,  Richemont  were  Con- 
netables,  Coetivy  was  an  Admiral,  and  Duch^tel  Grand 
Maitre  de  la  Maison  du  Roi.  The  English,  who  at  two 
different  times  had  conquered  half  of  France,  were  ex- 
pelled in  the  fourteenth  century  by  Duguesclin  and  in  the 
fifteenth  by  Richemont. 

Frangois  ii.,  nephew  of  Jean  v.,  blundered  into  all  the 
intrigues  against  France  that  were  set  afoot  during  the 
reign  of  Louis  xi.  and  the  minority  of  Charles  viii.  The 
Breton  nobility,  whose  sympathy  and  interests  were  bent 
towards  France,  were  discontented  with  his  anti-French 
policy,  and  in  the  end  he  found  himself  alone,  without 
friends  or  help  and  deserted  by  his  subjects.  He  left  his 
daughter  Anne,  but  twelve  years  old,  a  contested  authority 
and  an  invaded  territory. 


40  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

The  patriots  entreated  the  princess  to  marry  a  great  lord, 
Breton  or  French,  who  would  have  become  the  head  of  a  new 
dynasty.  The  anti-French  party  who  surrounded  her 
succeeded  in  engaging  her  to  the  German  Emperor,  Maxi- 
milian, but  he  did  not  send  the  Duchess  any  help,  and 
Brittany  was  soon  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  French. 
The  king,  Charles  vm.,  very  well  understood  that  to  make 
his  conquest  a  lasting  one  he  had  to  make  it  legal  in  the  eyes 
of  the  Bretons.  In  1491  he  asked  the  Duchess  Anne  to 
marry  him,  and  she  accepted. 

Charles  vm.  died  without  children,  and,  as  had  been 
arranged,  Anne  married  his  successor.  When  she  died  in 
1514,  having  only  two  daughters — the  eldest  of  whom, 
Claude,  was  married  to  Frangois  i.,  successor  of  Louis  xn. — 
Brittany  was  united  to  France,  but  only  in  a  provisional 
manner.  As  the  laws  governing  the  succession  to  the 
throne  were  not  the  same  in  the  two  countries,  it  was 
possible  that  the  heir  to  one  might  not  be  the  heir  to  the 
other.  Consequently  it  was  advantageous  for  the  French 
to  change  that  provisional  and  personal  imion  into  a  lasting 
one.  On  their  side,  the  Bretons  had  the  advantage  that 
the  French  king  could  not  now  pretend  to  regard  himself 
as  the  proprietor  of  Brittany ;  he  no  longer  held  his  right 
from  his  ancestors,  but  from  the  will  of  the  representatives 
of  the  people.  He  was  bound  by  a  contract,  the  clauses  of 
which  he  was  under  obligation  to  respect.  The  union  was 
thus  voted  by  the  States  of  Brittany  meeting  at  Vannes  in 
1532,  and  the  king  promised,  among  other  things,  never  to 
change  any  of  the  customs  of  Brittany  without  the  consent 
of  the  deputies. 

Though  now  a  French  province,  Brittany  retained  the 
sentiment  of  her  historical  and  social  originality,  thanks  to 
the  works  of  her  historians  and  jurisconsults,  of  whom  the 
most  renowned  was  D'Argentr6.  Brittany,  once  joined  to 
France,  took  her  part  in  the  glories  and  misfortunes  of  the 
Italian  wars.  At  the  sea-battle  of  the  10th  of  August  1512, 
the  Breton  captain,  Porzmoguer,  rendered  himself  illustrious 


ip' 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  BEETON  HISTOEY  41 

»y  his  heroic  death.  During  those  wars  the  Spanish  and  the 
]3nglish  several  times  came  to  ravage  our  coasts.  In  1522 
he  English  plundered  Morlaix,  and  in  1558  they  were 
lefeated  on  the  sands  of  the  Conquet.  The  Bretons  played 
I  preponderating  part  in  the  geographical  discoveries  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  In  1504  a  fleet,  chiefly  composed  of 
Breton  ships,  discovered  Newfoundland,  and  a  Breton 
sailor,  Jean  Cartier,  discovered  Canada  in  1534. 

Protestantism  made  but  few  recruits  in  Brittany — a 
hundred  noble  families,  a  few  magistrates,  and  some  gentry. 
The  Catholics  were  very  tolerant  towards  them,  and  the 
Protestants  suffered  few  vexations:  they  were  not  the 
victims  of  any  massacre,  even  at  the  feast  of  Saint  Bar- 
thelemy,  1572.  They  consequently  revolted  only  in  one 
or  two  districts,  and  for  the  most  part  the  religious  wars 
that  desolated  France  spared  Brittany. 

Everything  changed  when  Henry  iii.  died  in  1589. 
His  successor,  Henry  iv.,  was  a  Protestant.  He  was  helped 
by  his  co-religionists  and  by  those  among  the  Catholics 
who  thought  a  difference  of  religion  was  not  sufficient  to 
exclude  the  rightful  heir  from  the  throne.  The  Bretons, 
however.  Catholics  before  everything  else,  united  to  resist 
the  new  king,  with  the  Duke  of  Mercoeur,  governor  of  the 
province,  at  their  head.  Some  among  them,  who  wanted 
to  be  governed  only  by  descendants  of  their  former  dukes, 
and  who  would  not  accept  Henry  iv.  for  that  reason,  sought 
to  establish  as  their  duchess  the  daughter  of  the  King  of 
Spain,  niece  to  Henry  iii.,  and  great-granddaughter  of  the 
Duchess  Anne.  The  war  lasted  more  than  nine  years. 
It  was  a  succession  of  petty  battles,  of  taking  and  re-taking 
of  towns  and  castles,  that  did  all  the  more  harm  to  the 
country  because  several  commanders  on  both  sides,  such  as 
the  Protestant  Du  Liscouet  and  the  Catholic  La  Fontenelle, 
were  sheer  brigands,  who,  under  the  pretence  of  religion, 
sought  only  to  release  friends  and  to  hold  enemies  to  ran- 
som. And  the  foreigners  called  in  to  help  the  two  parties 
— the  Spanish  by  the  Catholics   and  the   English  by  the 


42  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Protestants — followed  their  example  without  scruple.  When 
Henry  iv.  renounced  Protestantism  in  1593  many  Ligueurs 
joined  him,  but  Mercoeur  and  his  partisans  submitted  to  him 
only  in  1598. 

In  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  the  Bretons 
continued  to  take  their  part  in  the  events  of  French  life. 
Guebriant  and  Coetlogon  were  made  Marechaux  de  France  ; 
but  above  all  the  Breton  sailors — Duguay-Trouin,  Cassard, 
Guichen,  Cornic,  La  Motte-Picquet,  etc. — distinguished 
themselves  by  their  ability  and  intrepidity.  Enemies  made 
several  attempts  to  carry  war  into  Brittany,  but  none  of 
their  attempts  to  land  succeeded.  The  English  were 
defeated  in  1694  at  Camaret,  and  in  1758  at  Saint  Cast. 
New  religious  congregations  came  to  settle  in  Brittany 
during  these  centuries — the  Jesuits,  Ursulines,  etc.  They 
were  nearly  all  teaching  orders.  Brittany  was,  in  fact, 
the  cradle  of  several  of  these  congregations — les  Filles  du 
Saint  Esprit,  for  example.  Thanks  to  the  apostolic  zeal  of 
Le  Nobletz,  Maunoir,  etc.,  and  to  the  missions  and  retreats 
they  organised,  religious  sentiment  attained  extraordinary 
intensity  in  our  country.  As  in  the  other  provinces,  there 
were  then  in  Brittany  artists  and  learned  men.  Le  Sage  was 
one  of  the  greatest  French  novelists.  Freron,  creator  of 
journalism,  was  one  of  the  few  writers  who  dared  to  pit 
himself  against  Voltaire. 

Our  country  was  then  governed  by  a  military  functionary 
called  the  Gouverneur-General  or  Commandant-en-Chef, 
and  by  a  civil  functionary,  I'lntendant.  The  taxes  were 
voted  by  the  *  Etats  de  Bretagne,'  composed  of  the  three 
orders :  the  clergy,  that  is  to  say,  the  bishops,  the  abbots, 
and  deputies  of  the  canons  ;  the  nobility,  that  is,  the  lords  ; 
and  the  Tiers-Etat,  composed  of  representatives  of  about 
forty  towns.  The  parish  clergy  and  the  peasants  were  not 
represented.  Between  the  Government,  who  always  wanted 
money,  and  the  States,  who  did  their  best  to  give  the  least 
possible,  the  conflicts  were  unceasing.  The  nobility,  the 
most  independent  of  the  three  orders,  were  the  leaders  of 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  BEETON  HISTOEY  43 

the  opposition.  Very  seldom  did  a  session  end  without  the 
exclusion  or  the  imprisonment  of  one  of  the  members. 
Things  grew  worse  in  the  eighteenth  century,  when  the 
magistrates  of  Brittany  aided  the  States  in  their  resistance. 
In  1719,  the  alliance  of  the  malcontents  with  the  King  of 
Spain  against  the  French  Eegent,  brought  about  proceedings 
against  Pontcallec  and  several  other  gentlemen,  and  later 
on — in  1720 — their  execution.  In  1765  the  coalition  of  the 
States  and  the  Parliament  against  the  Commandant-in-Chief , 
the  Duke  d'Aiguillon,  exasperated  the  Government  so  much 
that  the  king  imprisoned  six  magistrates,  Procureur- 
General  la  Chalotais  amongst  them.  They  were  dragged 
from  jurisdiction  to  jurisdiction  without  anjrthing  being 
proved  against  them,  and  the  Government  ended  by 
ordering  them  to  live  in  different  towns  and  keeping  close 
watch  on  them. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  the  States  had  contented 
themselves  with  discussing  in  the  utmost  detail  the  amount 
of  the  taxes  voted  by  them.  In  the  eighteenth  they 
decided  to  profit  by  the  distress  of  the  Government  to  estab- 
lish, in  opposition  to  it,  an  administration  belonging  to 
themselves,  and  to  vote  taxes  only  on  condition  that  they 
would  be  gathered  in  by  their  agents,  and  used  by  the 
latter  under  their  superintendence.  It  was  thus  that  the 
*  Commissions  Intermediaires  '  were  created. 

These  conflicts  between  the  French  Government  and  the 
Breton  nation  seldom  resulted  in  riots.  In  1665,  however, 
a  tax  upon  tobacco  and  tin  plates  and  the  '  papier  timbre,' 
having  been  established  without  the  approval  of  the  States, 
brought  about  serious  disturbances  in  several  towns.  The 
peasants  of  CornouaiUes  rose  in  a  body ;  and  as  the  gentry 
were  not  willing  to  take  the  lead  they  turned  their  anger 
against  them,  and  the  insurrection  became  a  '  jacquerie,' 
promptly  and  severely  repressed. 

The  States  of  Brittany  were  strongly  imbued  with 
national  feeling,  and  they  helped  the  Benedictine  Lobineau 
to  write  a  history  of  Brittany  which  served  as  a  model  for 


44  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

those  written  later  on  in  the  diiBferent  provinces.  Up  to  the 
end  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  three  orders  were  united 
for  the  defence  of  the  privileges  of  Brittany,  but  in  1788, 
when  the  burst  of  civil,  political  and  social  unrest  that 
ended  with  the  Revolution  appeared  in  France,  the  Breton 
townsmen,  finding  their  influence  in  the  States  too  small, 
claimed  representation  according  to  their  proportionate 
number  among  the  population.  It  was  a  throwing  over 
of  the  old  principles  by  which  it  was  not  the  men  but  the 
general  interests,  the  group,  that  were  represented.  The 
clergy  and  nobility  refused  to  make  any  concessions.  The 
townsmen  grew  excited.  Fighting  took  place  in  the  streets 
at  Rennes,  and  the  Government  dissolved  the  States,  never 
to  call  them  together  again. 

In  their  place  the  '  Assemblee  Nationale,'  made  up  of  all 
the  French  deputies,  met  in  Paris,  and  departments  took 
the  place  of  the  provinces.  Brittany  was  divided  into 
five  departments  :  lUe-et-V  ilaine,  Loire-Inferieure,  Cotes- 
du-Nord,  Morbihan,  Finistere.  The  departments  were 
divided  into  districts  and  communes  governed  by  elected 
assemblies  like  the  departments  themselves.  The  Breton 
deputies  played  a  great  part  at  the  beginning  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. One  of  them,  Chapelier,  was  made  president  of  the 
'  Assemblee  Nationale.'  Once  they  had  obtained  a  measure 
of  liberal  and  democratic  reform  they  tried  to  prevent 
the  movement  from  degenerating  into  the  bloody  anarchy 
of  La  Terreur,  The  greater  part  of  them  voted  against 
Louis  XVI. 's  death,  but  they  were  overruled.  Some  of 
them  were  put  in  prison  ;  others,  like  Le  Hardy,  had  their 
heads  cut  off ;  and  others,  like  Languinois  and  Kervelegan, 
escaped  only  with  the  greatest  difficulties. 

The  '  Assemblee  Constituante  '  now  voted  a  law  on  the 
organisation  of  the  clergy  that  ignored  the  rights  of  the 
Pope,  and  in  the  eyes  of  the  faithful  tainted  the  French 
Church  with  schism.  Most  of  the  bishops  and  priests  re- 
fused to  obey  that  law.  The  Government  expelled  them 
from  their  dioceses  and  parishes,  and  finally  exiled  them 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  BEETON  HISTOEY 

from  France.  The  revolutionary  citizens  of  the  towns 
organised  themselves  into  gardes  nationales,  and  ran  all 
over  the  country  hunting  up  priests  and  arresting  them. 
In  many  places  the  peasants  took  up  arms  to  defend  the 
ministers  of  their  religion,  and  the  year  1791  saw  the 
beginning  of  the  '  Chouanerie.'  A  Breton  gentleman, 
La  Eouerie,  tried  to  unite  all  the  insurgent  factors.  He 
died  before  having  succeeded;  but  in  the  beginning  of 
1793  a  general  insurrection  broke  out.  It  was  repressed 
in  a  few  weeks,  except  to  the  south  of  the  Loire,  where  the 
insurgents  were  helped  by  the  '  Vendeens,'  but  it  soon 
began  again  in  several  Breton  parishes.  The  heads  of  the 
insurrection  were  gentlemen  like  Charette,  citizens  like 
Le  Oris  du  Val,  and  peasants  like  Cadoudal.  It  resulted  in  a 
succession  of  petty  battles  between  the  insurgents  and  the 
garrisons  of  the  towns,  out  of  which  neither  of  them  gained 
real  advantage.  The  Eepublicans  killed  all  their  prisoners, 
and  Carrier,  the  Eevolutionary  deputy  at  Nantes,  had 
several  hundreds  of  people  shot  and  drowned  without  any 
trial  whatever.  The  Chouans  slaughtered  all  those  they 
suspected  of  being  spies.  In  1795  a  corps  of  emigrants 
landed  on  the  peninsula  of  Quiberon  to  help  the  Chouans. 
They  were  hemmed  in  by  the  Eepublican  army  and  obliged 
to  surrender.  They  were  nearly  all  shot,  including  even 
the  servants  who  accompanied  their  masters  in  a  merely 
menial  capacity.  The  Chouannerie  ended  only  with  the 
religious  persecution  of  1800. 

The  Bretons  of  the  nineteenth  century  were  not  lesser 
men  than  their  ancestors,  and  Brittany  may  justly  be  proud 
of  the  glory  she  acquired  through  them.  In  this  country 
many  generals,  admirals,  artists  and  learned  men  were  born. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  a  Breton, 
Chateaubriand,  gave  new  life  to  French  literature,  and  it  is 
he  whom  all  the  great  writers  of  the  first  half  of  last  century 
recognise  as  their  father  and  master.  The  mother  of  one 
of  the  finest  poets  of  the  nineteenth  century,  Victor  Hugo, 
was  a  Breton.     Other  Bretons — Caro,  Eenan,  Jules  Simon — 


46  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

were  also  renowned  for  their  literary  talents.  Another, 
Lamennais,  though  he,  later  on,  wrote  against  the  teaching 
of  the  Church,  contributed  more  than  any  of  his  contem- 
poraries to  dissipate  the  inertia  of  the  Catholics.  Brittany 
not  only  gave  several  of  her  children  to  the  revival  of  religion 
that  took  place  in  the  nineteenth  century,  but  two  of  the 
most  popular  orders,  the  Freres  de  1' Instruction  Chretienne 
and  the  Petites  Soeurs  des  Pauvres,  were  foimded  in 
Brittany. 

But  what  distinguished  the  Bretons  of  the  nineteenth 
century  above  all  was  the  steady  increase  in  the  clearness 
with  which  they  recognised  their  original  and  distinct 
nationality.  Brizeux  sang  the  poetry  of  our  scenery  and 
the  charm  of  our  old  picturesque  habits  ;  La  Villemarque, 
Souvestre,  and  Luzel  made  our  popular  songs  and  marvellous 
fairy  stories  known,  and  the  world  was  astonished  at  their 
literary  merit.  Thanks  to  the  works  of  many  writers,  at 
whose  head  M.  de  la  Borderie,  by  the  accuracy  of  his 
erudition  and  the  extent  of  his  studies,  takes  an  assured 
position,  our  history  got  rid  of  the  falsehoods  that  had 
previously  disfigured  it,  and  the  past  of  our  country  now 
appears  to  us  in  its  true  physiognomy  of  glory  and  poetry. 
In  our  large  towns  and  departments  numerous  learned 
societies  have  been  organised.  In  a  larger  circle,  the 
'  Association  Bretonne,'  founded  in  1843,  and  the  '  Union 
Regionaliste,'  established  in  1898,  endeavour  to  unite  all 
Bretons  who,  according  to  the  noble  expression  of  the 
Marquis  de  I'Estourbeillon,  wish  to  make  of  our  small 
motherland,  '  la  plus  prospere  des  Bretagnes  dans  la  plus 
glorieuse  des  Frances.' 


L 


THE  HEIK  OF  THE  DUCHY  OF  BEITTANY    47 


WHO   IS    THE   HEIH   OF   THE   DUCHY   OF 
BEITTANY? 

Henry  Jenner 

N'oun  na  da  Vleiz  na  da  Vontfort,  n'oun  nemet  servicher  d'an 
Itroun  Fari. — Salaun  Folgoat.i 

It  is  with  much  diffidence  and  with  many  apologies  to  the 
Bretons  that  I,  though  I  only  belong  by  birth  to  the  nation 
which  is  more  nearly  related  to  them  than  any  other, 
presume  to  attempt  an  answer  to  this  question.  Possibly 
my  conclusions  are  not  new  to  them,  though  to  me  they 
undoubtedly  are  new.  Certainly  much  that  is  contained 
in  this  paper  can  only  be  mere  commonplace  to  them. 
The  conclusions  are  sufficiently  startling,  but  I  must 
disclaim  at  once  any  political  arriere  pensee,  which  is  not 
my  business  in  the  affairs  of  another  nation.  All  I  claim 
to  do  is  to  state  what  I  believe  to  be  an  unquestionable 
genealogical  fact,  and  to  give  my  reasons  for  the  belief. 
I  do  not  know,  nor,  if  I  did,  is  it  for  me  to  say  whether  it 
has  any  bearings  beyond  the  quartering  of  coats-of-arms. 

Brittany  was  once  an  independent  state,  and  its  inde- 
pendence differed  materially  from  that  of  aU  the  other 
states,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Navarre,  which  were 
ultimately  united  into  one  kingdom,  but  were  virtually 
independent  at  a  time  when  '  omnis  Gallia '  was  divided 
into  a  good  many  more  than  '  tres  ^partes '  and  '  France ' 
was  only  a  geographical  expression,  or  was  applied  to  a 
comparatively  small  country.  When  Armorica  was  practic- 
ally derelict,  it  was  settled  by  emigrants  from  Great  Britain, 
who  preserved  their  own  Celtic  speech  and  imposed  it, 
instead  of  broken-down  Latin,  upon  whatever  '  fragments  of 
forgotten  peoples  '  they  found  there.  They  were  governed 
by  rulers  of  their  own  race,  not  by  Frankish  nobles  upon 

^  I  am  neither  for  Blois  nor  for  Montfort ;  I  am  but  a  servant  of  the  Lady  Mary. — 
Salaun  of  Folqoat. 


48  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

whom  fiefs  had  been  conferred  by  Merovingian  or  Carlovin- 
gian  kings.  The  Kings  of  France  from  time  to  time  at- 
tempted to  annex  the  country.  They  held  it  for  a  while  in 
the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries.  It  was  freed  by  Nominoe. 
The  Normans  ravaged  it  and  more  or  less  subdued  it,  till  the 
*  chas  a  bel  bro '  (dogs  of  a  far  land)  were  driven  away  by 
Alan  al  Louarn.  Over  and  over  again  France  or  England 
tried  to  make  it  French  or  English,  but  stubborn  Armorica 
remained  '  bepred  Breiz  '  (always  Breton)  until  the  marriage 
of  the  Duchess  Anne  to  two  successive  French  kings  and  of 
her  elder  daughter  to  a  third  united  the  two  crowns  de  facto 
until  the  fall  of  the  French  monarchy,  and,  if  Anne  was  the 
legitimate  duchess,  de  jure  also,  at  least  until  a  king  arose, 
Henry  of  Navarre,  who  succeeded  to  France  in  accordance 
with  the  Salic  Law  of  absolute  male  succession,  but  was  not 
in  any  way  the  genealogical  representative  of  the  Dukes  of 
Brittany. 

A  separation  under  such  circumstances  is  not  without 
precedent.  When  the  crowns  of  France  and  Navarre  had 
been  united  by  the  marriage  of  Philip  iv.  and  Joan  of 
Navarre,  they  continued  united  until,  on  the  death  of 
Charles  iv.,  the  male  line  of  Philip  and  Joan  became  extinct. 
Then  Philip  of  Valois,  who  was  not  descended  from  the 
House  of  Navarre,  inherited  France  under  the  Salic  Law, 
while  Navarre,  in  which  succession  by  or  through  a  female 
was  not  barred,  went  to  Joan,  daughter  of  Louis  x.,  the 
senior  female  heir.  The  two  crowns  were  not  united  again 
until  Henry,  King  of  Navarre,  succeeded  to  France  in  right 
of  his  paternal  descent. 

When  George,  Elector  of  Hanover,  became  King  of 
Great  Britain  in  1714,  by  virtue  of  an  Act  which,  whether 
validly  or  not,  excluded  Roman  Catholics  from  the  crown, 
no  change  was  made  in  the  laws  of  succession  except  the 
importation  of  a  religious  disqualification.  Thus  it  was 
that  on  the  death  of  William  iv.  in  1837,  the  crowns  which 
had  been  united  for  a  hundred  and  twenty-three  years 
were  disunited  again.     This  was  a  stronger  case  than  those 


THE  HEIR  OF  THE  DUCHY  OF  BEITTANY    49 

of  Navarre  and  Brittany,  for  Ernest,  Duke  of  Cumberland, 
was  quite  as  much  a  descendant  of  three  out  of  the  five 
Hanoverian  kings  as  Victoria  was,  and  under  almost  any 
rule  of  succession  but  the  British  and  Portuguese  would 
have  succeeded  to  the  joined  crowns,  whereas  Henry  iv.  of 
France  was  not  a  descendant  of  the  House  of  Brittany 
any  more  than  Philip  of  Valois  was  a  descendant  of  that  of 
Navarre.  Thus  it  is  seen  that  the  right  of  Henry  iv.  to  the 
Duchy  of  Brittany  is  not  at  all  obvious,  and  must  depend 
upon  the  validity  of  a  settlement  made  by  Francis  i.,  King  of 
France,  widower  of  Claude,  daughter  of  Duchess  Anne,  in  or 
about  1532,  and  an  alleged  resignation  of  rights  to  the 
French  king  by  the  heirs  of  the  House  of  Penthievre.  As 
a  rule  such  settlements  and  resignations  are  valueless  as 
against  future  heirs,  but  on  the  political  validity  of  these 
particular  arrangements  I  am  not  qualified  to  express  any 
opinion.  To  genealogy,  and  that  is  what  I  am  discussing, 
they  can  make  no  sort  of  difference. 

The  Salic  Law  did  not  apply  to  Brittany,  but  there,  as 
in  almost  every  non-Salic  constitution,  except  in  England 
after  the  accession  of  Henry  ii.  in  1154,  Scotland  after  that 
of  Robert  i.  in  1306,  and  Portugal  after  the  Council  of 
Lamego  in  1148,  male  agnates,  brothers,  nephews,  or  even 
those  more  distant,  often  succeeded  in  preference  to 
daughters,  who  frequently  only  came  in  when  there  were  no 
male  agnates  of  reasonable  proximity.  No  doubt  this, 
when  all  descended  from  the  original  '  purchaser  '  (as  the 
laws  of  Real  Property  would  say),  was  quite  as  consistent 
as  the  succession  of  all  the  sons  before  all  the  daughters 
instead  of  that  of  all  children  in  order  of  seniority  irrespective 
of  sex ;  and  it  had  its  value,  like  the  Salic  rule,  in  days  when 
the  principal  duty  of  a  king  was  to  lead  his  army  to  battle. 
But,  unlike  the  Salic  Law,  and  its  opposite  as  understood  in 
Britain  and  Portugal,  about  which  there  can  be  no  mistake, 
it  constantly  led  to  disputed  successions,  with  or  without 
bloodshed — generally  with — and  rival  claimants  tended  to 
become  puppets  in  the  hands  of  greater  powers  who  had 

VOL.  VI.  D 


50  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

axes  of  their  own  to  grind.  Also,  as  time  and  civilisation 
went  on  and  war-lords  could  perform  the  fighting  part  of 
their  duty  by  deputy,  the  natural  right  of  a  daughter  to 
succeed  to  her  father,  failing  sons,  got  more  and  more  to 
be  recognised,  though  even  now,  as  instance  the  true 
foundation  of  the  claim  of  Don  Carlos  to  the  throne  of  Spain, 
its  recognition  is  not  everyivhere  complete.  It  was  the 
conflict  of  the  two  ideas  of  succession  that  was  at  the  bottom 
of  the  great  dynastic  struggle  of  Blois  and  Montfort. 
Daughters  had  succeeded  to  their  fathers  in  Brittany 
before,  with  or  without  opposition,  though  it  generally 
happened  that  their  sons  or  husbands  reigned  instead  of 
them.  In  this  case  the  question  was  the  less  simple  one, 
whether,  on  the  death  of  John  in.  in  1341,  his  nephew,  John 
of  Montfort,  son  of  his  half-brother  John,  or  his  niece,  Joan, 
daughter  of  his  whole  brother  Guy  of  Penthievre  (or  her 
husband  Charles  of  Blois  in  her  right),  should  succeed  him. 
Guy  was  the  elder  brother,  but  the  '  male  agnate  '  theory 
came  in,  and  after  a  long  and  very  important  war,  John  of 
Montfort  eventually  got  the  best  of  it.  Yet  one  would 
have  said  at  first  sight  that  the  right  was  on  the  other  side, 
and  that  the  descendants  of  Joan  were  the  rightful  line. 
This  does  not  necessarily  follow,  for  the  exact  succession 
was  not  sufficiently  settled  in  those  days,  and  the  dispute 
resembles  so  closely  the  leading  case  of  Bruce  versus  Balliol 
some  fifty  years  earlier,  that  unless  one  is  prepared  to 
support  the  rights  of  the  descendants  of  Balliol  to  the 
Scottish  throne  one  cannot  consistently  dogmatise  in  favour 
of  those  of  Joan  of  Penthievre.  But  whether  the  Blois  side 
were  right  or  the  Montfort,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
true  Heir  of  Line  of  the  Dukes  of  Brittany  must  descend 
from  one  or  the  other  of  the  two  claimants.  There  are  no 
others  possible. 

John  of  Montfort  had  a  son,  John  v.  (1399-1442),  who 
was  succeeded  by  his  eldest  son,  Francis  i.  (1442-1450), 
who  left  a  daughter  Margaret,  a  child  of  only  seven  or  eight. 
She  did  not  succeed,  if  at  all,  until  after  her  uncle,  Peter  ii. 


THE  HEIR  OF  THE  DUCHY  OF  BEITTANY     51 

(1450-1457),  and  her  great-uncle,  Arthur  iii.  (1457-1458), 
had  both  reigned.  Meanwhile  she  had  married  the  next 
heir,  Francis,  son  of  Richard  of  fitampes,  third  son  of  John 
IV.  Margaret  died  childless  in  1469,  and  Francis  ii.  married 
again.  By  his  second  wife  he  had  a  daughter,  the  renowned 
Duchess  Anne.  Anne  was  recognised  as  her  father's  heir 
in  1486,  and  succeeded  him  at  his  death  in  1488.  There 
were  no  male  agnates  to  oppose  her  right,  and  she  was 
undoubtedly  Heiress  of  Line  of  the  House  of  Montfort,  and, 
saving  the  rights  of  the  House  of  Penthievre,  whatever  they 
may  have  been,  Heiress  of  Line  of  Nominoe  and  the  ancient 
kings. 

The  first  question  now  is  :  Who  is  the  Heir  of  Duchess 
Anne  ?  This  is  not  difficult  to  answer.  Anne  married, 
first,  Maximilian  of  Austria,  afterwards  Emperor.  This  was 
only  a  betrothal  by  proxy,  and  nobody,  not  even  the  parties 
themselves,  took  any  notice  of  it ;  second,  Charles  viii., 
King  of  France,  by  whom  she  had  no  children ;  third, 
Louis  XII.,  King  of  France,  by  whom  she  had  two  daughters, 
Claude  and  Renee.  Renee,  the  younger  of  the  two,  married 
Hercules  ii.  of  Ferrara,  and  her  daughter  Anne  married 
Francis  of  Lorraine,  Duke  of  Guise.  Her  succession  passed 
through  the  House  of  Bourbon-Conti  to  that  of  Orleans,  so 
that  if  the  line  of  the  elder  sister  had  failed,  the  Duke  of 
Orleans,  who  claims  the  French  crown,  might  have  had  a 
real  right  to  the  genealogical  heirship  of  the  House  of 
Brittany.  The  line  of  another  daughter  of  Renee  passed 
through  the  House  of  La  Rovere  to  that  of  Medici,  and 
ended  with  the  last  Medici  Grand-Duke  of  Tuscany  in  1737. 
But  the  line  of  the  elder  daughter,  Claude,  has  not  failed. 
She  married  Francis  i..  King  of  France,  and  had  a  son, 
Henry  ii.,  who  succeeded  to  her  rights  in  Brittany  and  to 
his  father's  in  France.  She  also  had  two  other  sons, 
Francis  and  Charles,  who  both  died  without  issue,  and  two 
daughters,  Magdalen,  who  married  James  v.  of  Scotland  and 
died  childless,  and  Margaret,  who  married  Emmanuel  Phili- 
bert,  Duke  of  Savoy.     Henry  ii.'s  three  sons,  Francis  ii., 


52  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Charles  ix.,  and  Henry  in.  reigned  successively  over 
France  and  Brittany  and  left  no  children,  the  last  dying  in 
1589.  Then  it  was  that  the  crown  of  France  went,  under 
the  Salic  Law,  to  Henry  of  Bourbon,  King  of  Navarre, 
whose  nearest  male  ancestor  in  common  with  Henry  in. 
was  St.  Louis  ix.  (1226-1270).  But  the  line  of  Anne  and 
Claude  was  not  yet  extinct.  Henry  ii.  had  also  three 
daughters,  Elizabeth,  who  married  Philip  ii.  of  Spain,  and 
died  in  1568,  leaving  two  daughters  :  Claude,  who  married 
Charles  ii.,  Duke  of  Lorraine  ;  and  Margaret,  who  married 
Henry  iv.  of  France,  and  had  no  children.  On  the  death  of 
Henry  ni.,  the  Heir  of  Line  of  the  Duchess  Anne  was 
certainly  Isabel,  elder  daughter  of  Elizabeth,  Queen  of 
Spain.  She  married  Albert  of  Austria,  and  died  childless  in 
1633.  Her  sister,  Catherine,  had  died  in  1597,  but  she  had 
married  Charles  Emmanuel  i.,  Duke  of  Savoy,  who  through 
his  mother,  Margaret,  daughter  of  Francis  i.  of  France,  was 
also  descended  from  Anne  of  Brittany.  Her  son  Victor 
Amadeus  i.  succeeded  to  his  aunt,  Isabel  of  Spain,  as  heir  of 
the  Duchess  Anne,  and  was  succeeded  in  1637  by  his  eldest 
son  Francis,  who  died  unmarried  in  1638.  The  second  son, 
Charles  Emmanuel  ii.,  succeeded,  and  died  in  1675.  Then 
follows  a  line  of  Dukes  of  Savoy  and  Kings  of  Sardinia: 
Victor  Amadeus  n.  (1675-1732),  who  was  the  first  King  of 
Sardinia  and  by  his  marriage  with  Anne  Maria  of  Orleans, 
daughter  of  Henrietta,  daughter  of  our  Charles  i.,  brought 
the  eventual  heirship  of  the  House  of  Stuart  into  his  family  ; 
Charles  Emmanuel  in.  (1730-1773) ;  Victor  Amadeus  ni. 
(1773-1796)  ;  Charles  Emmanuel  iv.  (1796-1819),  who  died 
childless  and  was  succeeded  by  his  next  brother,  Victor 
Emmanuel  i.  On  the  death  of  Victor  Emmanuel  i.,  in  1824, 
it  is  possible  that  his  brother,  Charles  Felix,  would  have 
succeeded  to  the  Duchy  of  Brittany,  on  the  '  male  agnate  ' 
principle,  but  as  he  died  without  children  in  1831,  it  made 
no  difference.  The  crown  of  Sardinia,  under  strict  Salic 
Law,  then  passed  to  the  House  of  Savoy-Carignan,  descended 
from  Thomas,  second  son  of  Charles  Emmanuel  i.   and 


THE  HEIE  OF  THE  DUCHY  OF  BEITTANY     53 

Catherine  of  Spain,  but  this  was  far  too  distant  to  apply  to 
Brittany  on  the  '  male  agnate  '  theory.  Victor  Emmanuel  i. 
left  four  daughters,*  the  eldest  of  whom,  Mary  Beatrice, 
married  Francis  iv.,  Duke  of  Modena,  and  to  her  the 
Heirship  of  Line  of  Brittany  undoubtedly  passed,  either  on 
the  death  of  her  father  or  of  her  uncle.  She,  dying  in  1840, 
left  two  sons,  Francis  v.  of  Modena,  who  succeeded  her, 
and  Ferdinand,  and  two  daughters,  Theresa,  who  married 
Henry  v..  King  of  France,  and  had  no  children,  and  Mary 
Beatrice,  who  married  John  of  Spain,  and  was  the  mother 
of  Don  Carlos  of  Spain.  Francis  v.  of  Modena  died  childless 
in  1875.  His  brother  Ferdinand  was  already  dead,  but  he 
had  left  a  daughter,  the  Archduchess  Maria  Theresa, 
Princess  Louis  of  Bavaria,  who  is  beyond  all  question  the 
Heiress  of  Line  of  Anne  of  Brittany. 

The  second  question  is  :  Who  is  the  Heir  of  Joan  of 
Penthievre,  wife  of  Charles  of  Blois  ?  In  tracing  out  this 
one  must  necessarily  proceed  on  strict  genealogical  lines. 
It  came  to  much  the  same  result  in  the  case  of  the  descend- 
ants of  Anne,  but  since  the  House  of  Penthievre  claimed  on 
principles  of  descent  like  those  of  Britain,  it  is  unquestionable 
that  the  '  male  agnate '  theory  cannot  apply  to  them.  They 
cannot  have  it  both  ways.  But  again  it  makes  no  difference. 
Guy  of  Penthievre,  second  son  of  Arthur  ii.,  as  we  have  seen, 
left  a  daughter,  Joan,  whose  husband,  Charles  of  Blois, 
disputed  the  Duchy  with  John  of  Montf  ort,  son  of  the  third 
son  of  Arthur  ii.  She  had  two  sons,  John  and  Henry,  and 
two  daughters,  Margaret  and  Mary.  Henry  died  childless  ; 
John  succeeded  to  his  mother,  and  died  in  1403,  leaving, 
besides  daughters,  four  sons:  Oliver,  who  died  without 
issue  in  1433 ;  John,  who  died,  also  without  issue,  in  1454  ; 
Charles,  who  died  in  1434,  leaving  one  daughter;  and  William, 
who  died  in  1455  leaving  three  daughters.  Thus  ended  the 
male  line  of  Joan  of  Penthievre.  Of  the  four  great-grand- 
daughters, the  heiress  was  Nicole,  daughter  of  Charles. 
She  married  John  of  Brosse,  and  died  in  1454,  leaving  a  son, 
also  John,  and  several  daughters.     This  John  died  in  1502, 


54  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

leaving  a  son,  Rene,  and  four  daughters.  The  only  son  of 
Rene,  John,  died  without  issue  in  1564,  and  Charlotte, 
daughter  of  Rene,  who  married  Francis  n.  of  Luxemburg, 
became  his  heiress.  She  had  an  elder  son,  Charles,  who 
had  died  childless  in  1553,  and  a  second  son,  Sebastian,  who 
died  in  1569,  leaving  an  only  daughter,  Mary,  who  married 
Philip  of  Lorraine,  Duke  of  Mercoeur.  Her  daughter  Frances 
married  Caesar,  Duke  of  Vend6me,  natural  son  of  Henry  iv. 
Frances  had  two  sons,  both  of  whom  died  before  her,  Francis 
without  issue  in  1669  and  Louis  in  1668,  and  a  daughter, 
Elizabeth.  Louis  had  two  sons,  Louis  Joseph,  who  died  in 
1712,  and  Philip,  who  died  in  1719,  both  without  issue. 
The  daughter,  Elizabeth,  married  Charles  Amadeus  of 
Savoy,  Duke  of  Nemours,  and  left  a  daughter,  Mary,  who 
married  Charles  Emmanuel  n.,  Duke  of  Savoy.  Their  son, 
Victor  Amadeus  ii.,  united  in  his  own  person  the  heirship  of 
line  of  both  Blois  and  Montfort,  and  from  him  the  com- 
bined inheritance  descended,  as  already  detailed,  to  his 
present  representative,  the  Archduchess  Maria  Theresa  of 
Modena,  consort  of  Prince  Louis  of  Bavaria,  who  is  beyond 
all  question  the  Heiress  of  Line  of  Joan  of  Penthievre. 

Thus  it  is  that  whether  one  holds  by  Blois  or  by  Montfort, 
and  whether  one  traces  according  to  the  ordinary  rules  of 
genealogy  or  admits  the  claims  of  proximate  male  agnates 
before  female  heirs,  the  result  is  the  same,  namely,  that  the 
Heiress  of  Line  of  the  ancient  Ducal  House  of  Brittany 
can  be  no  other  than  her  Royal  Highness  Princess  Maria 
Theresa  of  Modena,  Princess  Louis  of  Bavaria.  Another 
Salaun  might  say,  '  Mi  azo  da  Vleiz  ha  da  Vontfort  ho  daou  ' 
[I  am  for  both  Blois  and  Montfort],  and  leave  the  rest  of  his 
sentence  unchanged. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that,  going  by  genealogy,  not 
by  Acts  of  Settlement,  the  same  exalted  lady  is  also,  through 
her  descent  from  Charles  i.,  as  is  well  known.  Heiress  of  Line 
of  the  House  of  Stuart,  and  therefore  of  Tudor  and  Planta- 
genet,  of  Rollo,  of  Alfred  and  Cerdic,  and  of  the  ancient 
Scottish  and  Pictish  and  perhaps  Irish  and  British  Royal 


If- 


THE  MACNEILLS  OF  ARGYLLSHIRE  55 


Houses.  It  is  a  wonderful  pedigree  that  includes  the 
heirship  of  all  Celtia,  with  Saxondom  and  Normandy 
thrown  in  ! 


THE   MACNEILLS    OF   ARGYLLSHIRE 

Rev.  a.  Maclean  Sinclair 

GiLLEOiN  NA  TuAiGHE,  progenitor  of  the  Macleans,  had 
three  sons,  Gilchrist  or  Cristin,  GiUebride  and  Gillise. 
Gillemoire  Maclean,  a  grandson  of  Gilleoin,  and  probably  a 
son  of  Gilchrist,  held  lands  in  the  county  of  Perth  in  1296. 
As  the  district  of  Lorn  belonged  to  the  county  of  Perth  in 
1296,  and  as  the  Macleans  had  their  early  home  in  Lorn, 
it  may  be  regarded  as  a  fact  that  Gillemoire  lived  in  Lorn. 
John  Mac  Molmari  appears  on  record  in  1354.  He  was  one 
of  the  principal  followers  of  Macdougall  of  Lorn  and  had  a 
son  old  enough  to  be  given  as  a  hostage.  As  Molmairi  or 
Maolmoire  and  Gillemoire  are  the  same  name,  it  is  probable 
that  the  John  who  was  to  give  his  son  as  a  hostage  was  the 
son  of  Gillemoire  Maclean.  At  the  same  time  it  is  possible 
that  he  was  not  a  Maclean  at  all ;  he  may  have  been  a 
Macdougall. 

Gillise,  youngest  son  of  Gillean  of  the  Battle-axe,  settled 
in  Kintyre.  Malcolm,  his  son,  appears  there  as  a  landlord  in 
1296.  Malcolm  married  Reena,  daughter  of  Donald,  son 
of  Eric  Mac  Kennedy,  Lord  of  Carrick,  and  had  by  her 
Donald,  Neil,  and  John  Dubh.  Lachlan  Mor,  progenitor  of 
the  Maclachlans,  married  a  sister  of  Donald's  wife  and  had 
by  her  Patrick,  his  successor.  In  the  Skene  MS.  the  name 
of  Malcolm  Maclean's  father-in-law  is  given  as  Gamail,  but 
Gamail  is  a  misreading  for  Domnall. 

Donald  Maclean,  eldest  son  of  Malcolm,  was  married 
and  had  four  children,  Gillise  or  Malise,  John,  Beatrice,  and 
Eifreta.  Neil,  the  second  son  of  Malcolm,  was  married 
and  had  two  sons,  Dermid  and  Malcolm.  John  Dubh,  the 
third  son  of  Malcolm,  married,  apparently,  a  daughter  of 


56  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Lachlan,  son  of  Hector,  son  of  Alexander  of  Loup,  and  had 
two  sons  by  her,  Lachlan  Lubanach  and  Hector  Reaganach, 
Lachlan  Lubanach  married  in  1366  Mary,  daughter  of  John, 
Lord  of  the  Isles.  As  Mary  and  himself  were  third  cousins, 
it  was  necessary  for  them  to  obtain  from  Rome  a  dispensation 
for  their  marriage. 

The  groundless  statement  has  sometimes  been  made 
that  Hector  Reaganach  of  Lochbuie  was  an  older  son  than 
Lachlan  Lubanach  of  Duart.  According  to  the  Skene  MS., 
which  was  compiled  about  1383,  John  Dubh  had  two  good 
sons,  Lachlan  and  Hector.  If  Hector  had  been  older  than 
Lachlan  the  words  of  the  MS.  would  certainly  be — John 
Dubh  had  two  good  sons,  Hector  and  Lachlan.  As,  how- 
ever, the  MS.  names  Lachlan  as  the  first  son  and  Hector  as 
the  second  son,  it  is  of  no  use  to  fly  in  the  face  of  it  at  the 
present  day  and  declare  that  the  writer  of  it  was  in  error 
in  making  Lachlan  older  than  Hector.  Whilst,  however, 
it  is  true  that  Lachlan  was  older  than  Hector,  it  is  also 
true  that  neither  of  them  had  a  particle  of  hereditary  right 
to  the  chiefship  of  the  Macleans.  It  was  not  right  but  might 
— the  might  of  the  Lord  of  the  Isles — ^that  gave  to  Lachlan 
the  lands  of  Duart  and  placed  him  at  the  head  of  the  Clan 
Gillean.  It  was  the  same  might  that  gave  the  lands  of 
Lochbuie  to  Hector  Reaganach  and  made  an  important 
chieftain  of  him.  The  representative  of  the  Gillemoire 
Maclean,  who  lived  in  Lorn  in  1296,  would  be  the  hereditary 
chief  of  the  Macleans.  But  as  the  Macleans  of  Lorn  were 
followers  of  the  Macdougalls,  they  could  expect  no  favours 
from  the  Lords  of  the  Isles.  The  two  sons  of  Donald 
Maclean  in  Kintyre,  and  the  two  sons  of  Neil  Maclean, 
Donald's  brother,  had  a  much  better  hereditary  right  to 
the  chiefship  of  the  Macleans  than  Lachlan  Lubanach  had, 
but  as  neither  of  them  had  the  powerful  Lord  of  the  Isles 
for  his  father-in-law  none  of  them  could  obtain  the  chiefship 
of  the  Macleans.  Whilst,  however,  Lachlan  Liibanach  was 
indebted  for  his  lands  and  chiefship  to  the  fact  that  his  wife 
was  a  daughter  of  the  Lord  of  the  Isles,  it  is  tolerably  certain 


THE  MACNEILLS  OF  ARGYLLSHIRE  57 


9i 

■  ^Triat,  so  far  as  intellect,  worldly  wisdom,  and  capacity  for 

i  P  business  were  concerned,  he  was  the  best  qualified  man 

for  the  position  of  chief  among  the  Macleans  of  his  day. 

It  is  possible  that  the  descendants  of  Gillemoire  Maclean 
made  Morisons  of  themselves,  and  that  the  Morisons  who, 
along  with  the  Macinnises,  carried  the  body  of  Hector  Roy 
of  Duart  from  Harlaw  to  lona,  were  really  Macleans. 

There  is  no  connection  between  the  Macneills  of  Argyll- 
shire and  the  Macneils  of  Barra.  They  are  not  descended 
from  the  same  Neil,  and  are  consequently  two  distinct  clans. 
The  Macneils  of  Barra  were  originally  known  as  the  Clan 
Gilladamnan.  It  was  only  about  the  year  1400  that  they 
■  began  to  call  themselves  Macneils.  Gilladamnan  or  Gille- 
onan  still  exists  among  them  as  a  personal  name.  The 
Macneills  of  Argyllshire  had  their  earliest  home  in  Kintyre, 
and  are  evidently  descended  from  Neil,  second  son  of 
Malcolm  Maclean  in  Kintyre. 

I.  Neil,  progenitor  of  the  Macneills  of  Argyllshire,  was 
born  about  the  year  1305.  He  was  appointed  by  King 
Robert  Bruce,  shortly  after  1325,  constable  of  the  castle 
of  Scraburg.  We  find  it  on  record  that  he  received  in  1329 
the  sum  of  ten  pounds  in  part  payment  for  keeping  the 
castle  of  Scraburg.  It  is  certainly  possible  that  there  was 
a  castle  of  that  name  in  Scotland.  At  the  same  time,  the 
probability  is  that  Scraburg  is  a  misreading  for  Cairnburg, 
Tarbert,  or  some  other  known  stronghold. 

II.  Malcolm,  son  of  Neil,  was  known  as  Calum  Mac 
Neill,  and  was  the  first  of  the  Argyllshire  Macneills.  He  had 
a  better  hereditary  right  to  the  chiefship  of  the  Macleans 
than  his  cousin  Lachlan  Lubanach,  and  consequently  could 
have  little  or  no  inclination  to  follow  Lachlan  as  his  chief. 
By  dropping  the  name  Maclean  and  calling  himself  Macneill 
he  could  be  the  founder  of  a  new  clan ;  he  had  a  perfect 
right  to  call  himself  Malcolm  Macneill,  and  he  would 
exercise  that  right. 

III.  Neil,  son  of  Malcolm,  was  probably  known  as 
Niall  Og,  and  may  have  been  constable  of  Castle  Sween. 


58  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

Indeed,  Castle  Sween  or  Sweenburg  may  have  been  the 
same  place  as  Scraburg. 

IV.  Torquil,  son  of  Neil,  fought  under  Alexander,  third 
Lord  of  the  Isles,  in  the  battle  in  which  the  latter  was 
defeated  in  Lochaber  by  King  James  i.  in  1429.  Among 
the  prisoners  taken  by  the  King  were  Alexander  of  the  Isles, 
Lachlan  Bronnach  Maclean  of  Duart,  Torquil  Macneill, 
Terlach  Maclean  of  Glenurchart,  and  Duncan  Person,  chief 
of  the  Macphersons.  They  were  all  closely  related,  except 
perhaps  Duncan  Person.  They  were  confined  in  Tantallon 
Castle  and  kept  there  until  October  1431.  Torquil  was 
captain  of  Castle  Sween.  He  was  also  toiseachdoir  of 
Knapdale,  an  office  to  which  he  had  been  appointed  by  the 
Lord  of  the  Isles.  He  had  two  sons  :  Neil,  his  successor, 
and  Hector,  ancestor  of  the  Macneills  of  Taynish. 

V.  Neil,  eldest  son  of  Torquil,  received  in  1455  from 
John,  fourth  Lord  of  the  Isles,  a  charter  of  confirmation  of 
the  office  of  toiseachdoir  of  Knapdale.  Hector,  second  son 
of  Torquil,  appears  on  record  in  1463,  and  is  described  as 
Hector,  son  of  Torquil,  son  of  Neil.  He  appears  again  on 
record  in  1472  and  was  then  keeper  of  Castle  Sween. 

VI.  Malcolm,  son  of  Neil,  witnessed  a  charter  in  1472, 
and  was  at  that  time  laird  of  Gigha.  He  witnessed  another 
charter  in  1492.  He  seems  to  have  been  the  first  Macneill 
who  owned  Gigha.  He  had,  apparently,  two  sons,  Neil  and 
Torquil. 

In  1476  John  of  the  Isles  was  deprived  of  the  lands  of 
Knapdale  and  Kintyre.  In  1478  Donald  Gorm,  Neil 
Macneill,  and  others  were  in  possession  of  Castle  Sween 
and  refused  to  surrender  it  to  the  Government.  In  1481 
Castle  Sween,  together  with  certain  lands  in  Knapdale, 
passed  into  the  hands  of  Colin,  first  Earl  of  Argyll.  Donald 
Gorm  was  probably  a  Macdonald,  Neil  Macneill  was  the 
son  and  successor  of  Hector  Macneill,  constable  of  Castle 
Sween  in  1472.  He  was  the  subject  of  an  elegy  by  Effric 
Nic  Corquodale,  who  was  a  very  good  poetess.  It  is 
certainly  possible  that  Effric  was  his  second  wife,  but  there 


THE  MACNEILLS  OF  ARGYLLSHIEE  59 

is  no  ground  for  concluding  that  such  was  the  case.  The 
warm  expressions  of  a  poetess  do  not  necessarily  imply 
affection  as  a  wife. 

VII.  Neil,  son  oi  Malcolm,  was  slain,  together  with  a 
number  of  his  followers,  in  1530,  by  Allan  Maclean,  the 
accomplished  plunderer  who  was  known  as  Ailein  nan  Sop. 
Allan  seized  the  island  of  Gigha  and  kept  possession  of  it 
during  his  life.  The  only  way  to  dispossess  him  would  be  to 
catch  him  and  put  him  to  death.  But  as  he  was  the  best 
admiral  in  Scotland  and  had  a  strong  fleet  under  his  com- 
mand, and  as  his  brother.  Hector  Mor  of  Duart,  Macdonald 
of  Islay,  and  the  Earl  of  Argyll  were  on  friendly  terms  with 
him,  it  would  be  both  a  difficult  and  hazardous  matter  to 
attempt  to  catch  him.  Shortly  after  he  had  made  himself 
master  of  Gigha,  he  slew  Maclean  of  Torloisk  and  seized  his 
estate.     He  was  then  laird  of  both  Gigha  and  Torloisk. 

In  January  1531  King  James  v.  gave  to  Torquil  Macneill, 
chief  and  principal  of  the  clan  and  surname  of  Macneill,  a 
gift  of  the  rents  and  duties  of  all  the  lands  that  had  belonged 
to  Malcolm  Macneill  of  Gigha  until  the  entry  of  the  lawful 
and  right  heir  thereto. — Collectanea  de  Rebus  Albanicis,  p.  22. 
As  Torquil  had  thus  been  appointed  guardian  to  the  heir  of 
Neil  Macneill,  it  is  probable  that  he  was  a  brother  of  Neil. 
The  fact  that  he  is  styled  chief  and  principal  of  the  clan  and 
surname  of  Macneill  does  not  prove  that  he  was  chief  of  the 
Macneils  of  Barra  ;  it  merely  proves  that  he  was  chief  of 
the  Clan  Neill  of  Gigha,  or  the  Clan  Neill  in  whose  interest  he 
was  appointed  guardian. 

Neil  of  Gigha  had  two  children — a  lawful  daughter  named 
Annabell,  and  a  natural  son  named  Neil.  Annabell  inherited 
her  father's  lands,  and,  like  a  sensible  and  dutiful  sister, 
made  them  over  to  her  brother  Neil,  who  was  known  as 
Neil  Og. 

VIII.  Neil  Og  was  laird  of  Gigha  only  in  name.  Although 
he  had  obtained  a  lawful  claim  to  it  from  his  sister  it  was 
of  little  or  no  value  to  him,  as  he  could  not  obtain  possession 
of  it. 


60  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

In  1538  there  was  a  feud  between  the  Macalisters  of 
Loup  and  the  Maedonalds  of  Largie,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  Macneills  on  the  other  hand.  Alexander  Macalister 
of  Loup  and  John  and  Archibald  Macdonald  of  the  Largie 
family  slew  Malcolm  Macneill,  John  Macquarrie,  and  others, 
while  Donald  Balloch  Macneill  and  his  accomplices  slew 
Finlay  Carach  Mac  Dunsleibhe,  Ewen  Mac  Lachlan,  and 
others — all  followers  of  the  Macalisters  of  Loup  or  the 
Maedonalds  of  Largie.  The  Macalisters  and  the  Maedonalds 
seem  to  have  been  the  aggressors. 

In  July  1539  King  James  v.  gave  to  Allan  Maclean, 
Ailein  nan  Sop,  a  gift  of  the  non-entry  of  Gigha,  Camera voch, 
Tarbert,  and  other  lands,  for  all  the  terms  since  the  death 
of  Malcolm  Macneill,  the  last  possessor  thereof,  and  until  the 
entry  of  the  rightful  heir.  He  appointed  him  at  the  same 
time  toiseachdoir  of  all  Kintyre  from  the  Mull  to  Altasynach 
or  AUt  nan  Sionnach.  As  Neil  of  Gigha  had  not  been 
served  heir  to  his  father,  Malcolm  was  the  last  person  who 
was  in  legal  possession  of  Gigha.  In  1542  King  James 
appointed  Neil  Og  toiseachdoir  of  the  same  district  in 
Kintyre  over  which  he  had  appointed  Ailean  nan  Sop  in  1539. 
Allan  died  in  1551  and  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Hector. 
In  1552  Hector  obtained  a  gift  of  the  non-entry  of  Gigha 
and  all  the  other  lands  that  had  been  held  by  his  father. 
As  Neil  Og  could  not  possibly  wrest  his  lands  from  Hector 
Maclean  he  sold  them  to  James  Macdonald  of  Islay,  who 
received  a  charter  of  them  from  Queen  Mary  in  April  1554. 
They  consisted  of  the  twenty  pound  lands  of  Gigha,  sixteen 
mark  lands  of  Kintyre,  five  mark  lands  in  Islay,  and  eight 
mark  lands  in  Knapdale.  Neil  Og  died  unmarried  some 
time  after  1566.  In  1590  Angus  Macdonald  of  Islay  sold 
the  island  of  Gigha  for  3000  marks  to  Sir  John  Campbell  of 
Calder. 

The  Macneills  of  Taynish 

I.  Hector,  second  son  of  Torquil,  chief  of  the  Clan  Neill, 
was  born  probably  about  1430.     He  witnessed  a  charter  in 


THE  MACNEILLS  OF  ARGYLLSHIBE  61 

^463,  and  is  described  as  Hector,  son  of  Torquil,  son  of  Neil. 
In  1472  he  was  keeper  of  Castle  Sween  in  Knapdale,  and  also 
laird  of  Taynish. 

II.  Neil,  son  of  Hector,  succeeded  his  father  in  Taynish. 
He  was  married  and  had  three  sons — Hector,  Donald 
Balloch,  and  Malcolm. 

In  1476  John,  fourth  Lord  of  the  Isles,  was  deprived  of 
the  lands  of  Knapdale  and  Kintjrre.  In  1478  Donald  Gorm, 
Neil  Macneill,  and  others  were  in  possession  of  Castle  Sween 
and  would  not  surrender  it  to  the  Government.  Donald 
Gorm  was  possibly  a  natural  son  of  Donald  Balloch  Mac- 
donald.  Neil  Macneill,  who  was  undoubtedly  Macneill  of 
Taynish,  was  probably  married  to  a  daughter  of  Donald 
Gorm.  In  1481  Castle  Sween,  together  with  certain  lands 
in  Knapdale,  passed  into  the  hands  of  Colin,  first  Earl  of 
Argyll.  The  connection  of  the  MacneiUs  with  Castle  Sween 
was  now  at  an  end. 

The  names  of  the  third,  fourth,  and  fifth  MacneiUs  of 
Taynish  may  have  been  Hector,  Neil,  and  Hector,  but  what 
they  really  were  I  do  not  know. 

VI.  Neil  Macneill  of  Taynish  appears  as  a  witness  in 
1603.  Malcolm,  his  brother,  and  Hector,  his  son,  appear  as 
witnesses  at  the  same  time. 

VII.  Hector,  son  of  Neil,  was  fiar  of  Taynish  in  1603. 
He  became  a  vassal  of  the  Earl  of  Argyll  in  1607.  In  1620 
we  find  him  labouring  with  all  earnestness  to  expel  the 
Macleans  from  Jura,  and  to  plant  Campbells,  or  other  loyal 
followers  of  the  Earl  of  Argyll,  in  their  place.  He  was  in 
possession  of  the  island  of  Gigha  in  1626. 


The  Macneills  of  Gallochallie 

I.  Donald  Balloch,  son  of  Neil  second  of  Taynish,  was 
the  progenitor  of  the  Macneills  of  Gallochallie. 

In  1538  the  Macalisters  of  Loup  and  the  Macdonalds  of 
Largie  slew  Malcolm  MacneiU,  John  Macquarrie,  and  others. 
In  the  same  year,  or  perhaps  early  in  1539,  Donald  Balloch 


62  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

Macneill  slew  a  number  of  the  followers  of  the  Macdonalds 
of  Largie.  It  is  probable  that  Malcolm  Macneill  was  a 
brother  of  Donald  Balloch  and  that  he  lived  in  Kintyre. 

II.  Hector,  son  of  Donald  Balloch,  had  two  sons,  John 
Balloch  and  Hector  Boydach. 

III.  John  Balloch  had  at  least  one  son,  John  Og. 

IV.  John  Og  had  two  sons :  Donald,  who  succeeded  him 
in  GallochalHe,  and  Malcolm  Beg  of  Arichonan. 

V.  Donald  was  succeeded  by  his  son,  whose  name  was 
probably  John. 

VII.  Donald,  son  of  the  son  of  Donald,  was  a  strong 
Jacobite,  as  the  following  extracts  show  : 

'  Carnassary  Castle  belonged  to  Sir  Duncan  Campbell  of 
Achinbreck,  who  joined  the  Earl  of  Argyll  in  support  of  the 
Duke  of  Monmouth  in  1685.  After  the  defeat  of  Argyll 
Lachlan  Maclean  of  Torloisk,  Lachlan  Maclean  of  Coll, 
Maclean  of  Ardgour,  Maclean  of  Kinlochaline,  Maclean  of 
Lochbuie,  Donald  Macneill  of  Callochallie,  Archibald  Mac- 
lachlanof  Craigentarve  and  Maceachern  in  Kintyre  captured, 
plundered  and  burnt  the  castle  of  Carnassarie.' — Statistical 
Account  of  the  Parish  of  Kilmartin. 

'  Sir  John  of  Duart,  understanding  that  his  friend  and 
neighbour,  Macneill  of  Calachailie,  was  surrounded  by  some 
English  men-of-war  at  the  Island  of  Gighalum,  sent  a  de- 
tachment of  men  under  the  command  of  Sir  Alexander 
Maclean,  who  brought  off  Calachailie  safe,  with  the  loss  of 
only  one  man's  arm  shot  off  by  a  cannon  ball.' — Ardgour 
Manuscript,  page  44. 

The  Macneills  of  Colonsay 

I.  Malcolm  Beg,  son  of  John  Og  of  Callochallie,  was 
noted  for  his  strength,  activity,  and  determination. 

II.  Neil  Og,  only  son  of  Malcolm  Beg,  had  three  sons  : 
Malcolm  of  Arichonan,  who  died  young ;  John,  who 
succeeded  his  brother  in  Arichonan,  and  Donald  of  Crerar 
and  Drumdrishaig. 


i 


THE  MACNEILLS  OF  AEGYLLSHIRE  63 

III.  Donald  of  Crerar  exchanged  his  lands  with  the 
Duke  of  Argyll,  in  1700,  for  Colonsay  and  Oronsay.  He 
married  Mary,  daughter  of  Lachlan  Macneill  of  Tirfergus, 
and  had  Malcolm  hi's  successor. 

IV.  Malcolm,  second  of  Colonsay,  married  Barbara, 
daughter  of  Campbell  of  Dunstaffnage,  and  had  two  sons, 
Donald  of  Colonsay  and  Alexander  of  Oronsay.  Donald  of 
Colonsay  acquired  the  estate  of  Ardlussa  in  Jura.  He  was 
succeeded  in  his  possessions  by  Archibald  his  son. 

V.  Alexander  of  Oronsay  married  Mary,  daughter  of 
Alexander  Macdougall,  chief  of  the  Clan  Dougall,  and  had 
by  her  John,  Malcolm,  James,  Donald,  Alexander,  and 
Archibald. 

VI.  John,  eldest  son  of  Alexander,  was  born  in  1767. 
He  succeeded  his  father  in  Oronsay,  and  purchased  Colonsay 
and  Ardlussa  from  his  cousin  Archibald,  son  of  Donald. 
He  married  Hester,  daughter  of  Duncan  Macneill  of  Dun- 
more,  and  had  by  her  Alexander,  Duncan,  John,  Malcolm, 
Archibald,  and  Forbes — all  of  whom  knew  Gaelic  as  well  as 
English.  Alexander  succeeded  his  father  in  Colonsay ; 
Duncan,  who  was  born  in  1795,  was  one  of  the  clearest- 
headed  lawyers  that  Scotland  has  ever  produced.  He  was 
raised  to  the  Bench,  as  Lord  Colonsay,  in  1851,  and  ap- 
pointed President  of  the  Court  of  Session  in  1852.  He  died 
unmarried  in  1874.  John  won  distinction  as  a  diplomatist, 
Malcolm  was  a  lieutenant-colonel  in  the  Army,  Archibald 
was  a  Writer  to  the  Signet,  and  Forbes  a  merchant  in 
London. 

VII.  Alexander  of  Colonsay  purchased  the  island  of 
Gigha  in  1836.  He  was  drowned  in  the  steamer  Orion 
in  1850.  He  left  four  sons:  John  Carstairs,  born  in  1831, 
Alexander,  Duncan,  and  Malcolm. 


The    Macneills   of   Carskeay 

In  1594  Hector  Macneill  of  Carskeay;   Donald  Dubh 
Macneill,  son  of  Ewen ;  Lachlan  Mor  Macneill ;  John,  son  of 


64  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

Hector  Macneill ;  and  John,  son  of  Malcolm  Macneill,  gave 
a  bond  of  manrent  to  James  Macdonald,  son  and  heir  of 
Angus  of  Islay.  In  1618  Hector  of  Carskeay  was  placed  in 
charge  of  the  castle  of  Kilkerran. 

The  Macneills  of  Tirfergus 
Among  the  witnesses  to  the  bond  of  manrent  given  in 
1594  by  the  Macneills  of  Carskeay  to  James  Macdonald 
were  the  following  persons  :  Neil  Buie  Macneill,  Tormod 
Macneill,  and  Donald  Maddir  Macneill ;  Neil  Buie  was  the 
representative  of  the  Macneills  of  Tirfergus,  and  was 
succeeded  by  his  son  Lachlan.  Tormod  Macneill  and 
Donald  Maddir  Macneill  were  relatives  of  Neil  Buie. 


THE  DYING  BARD 

How  long  before  the  night  gives  way  to  day  1 
How  long  before  these  glowing  embers  die  away  ? 

Like  this  poor  fire,  that,  all  but  spent, 

Flickers  and  fades  again  ;  so  old  and  bent, 
I  know  that  I  must  die. 
An  hour  is  left :  then  when  away  across  the  sky 

The  great  black  clouds  have  rolled, 

The  morn  will  see  me  cold. 

One  hour  before  the  paling  day  has  broke ! 
One  hour  before  these  smould'ring  embers  cease  to  smoke ! 
Come,  Harp,  and  in  the  last  red  glow. 
The  melancholy  harmonies  shall  flow ; 
For  when  the  night  is  dead 
No  elegy  will  sound  to  mourn  this  snowy  head. 
No  one  is  left  behind 
To  moan,  except  the  wind. 

So  let  thy  voice,  joined  with  my  parting  breath, 
Tell  of  the  tragic  majesty  of  Death. 

With  tragic  chords  the  heavy  Hand  of  Fate 
Strikes  the  sobbing  Lyre  of  Life — too  late 
My  weary  spirit  seems 
To  wake  again ;  too  late  there  rise  those  idle  dreams 
The  harmonies  recall 
Of  Love,  the  greatest  tragedy  of  all. 


WHITLEY  STOKES  65 

Farewell,  my  loveless  life,  my  lifeless  love  ! 
The  daylight  grows,  the  world  begins  to  move. 
Farewell,  0  Harp :  now  we  have  hurled 
Our  great  death-chords  across  the  world, 
'Twere  best  thou  never  ring 
To  lesser  hand ;  with  mine  I  snap  the  string 
And  throw  the  broken  lyre 
To  smoulder  on  the  fire. 

H.  Priestley  Smith. 


WHITLEY  STOKES 

Richard  Henebry 

Death  has  been  sadly  decimating  the  little  rank  of  Keltic 
scholars  of  late  years.  Count  Nigra  of  Italy  passed  away 
almost  with  Dr.  Ascoli  of  Milan  and  Dr.  Bugge  of  Christiania. 
Then  a  thrill  of  sorrow  passed  over  the  learned  world  at  the 
totally  unexpected  announcement  that  John  Strachan  of 
the  Victoria  University,  Manchester,  had  been  cut  down  in 
his  prime,  to  be  renewed  all  too  soon  by  the  mournful  news 
that  added  the  name  of  Whitley  Stokes  to  the  tally  of  the 
lamented  dead.  I  wish  to  write  this  short  notice  of  the  life 
and  labours  of  Stokes  as  a  tribute  to  the  pure  friendship 
that  joined  us  for  nigh  twenty  years  and  in  some  slight 
discharge  of  the  many  obligations  I  owe  him. 

Whitley  Stokes,  C.S.I.,  CLE.,  D.C.L.,  LL.D.,  Honorary 
Member  of  the  German  Oriental  Society,  and  Foreign 
Associate  of  the  Institute  of  France,  who  died  in  London  the 
13th  of  April  of  the  present  year,  was  born  in  Dublin  in  1830. 
He  was  of  Protestant  and  English  stock,  but  of  a  family  that, 
like  many  others,  threw  in  their  lot  with  the  people  amongst 
whom  they  lived,  and  are  tenderly  revered  in  Irish  memory 
for  their  emulation  of  the  practice  of  the  early  Norman 
settlers  in  becoming  ipsis  Hihernis  Hiberniores,  The  first 
of  his  name  to  come  to  Ireland  was  Gabriel  Stokes,  who  is  on 
record  as  having  been  an  Engineer  and  Deputy  Surveyor  in 
1735.     His  son,  Gabriel  Stokes,  D.D.,  was  a  distinguished 

VOL.  VI.  E 


66  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

churchman  in  Ireland,  being  a  Fellow  of  Trinity  College, 
Dublin,  Prebendary  of  Elphin,  Chancellor  of  Waterford  and 
Rector  of  Desertmartin  in  the  Diocese  of  Derry.     His  son, 
Whitley  Stokes  the  elder,  was  born  in  1763  and  became  a 
Fellow  of  Trinity  in  his  twenty-fifth  year.     He  was  a  man  of 
sterling  probity  and  rectitude,  who  was  forced  into  rebellion 
through  witnessing  the  iniquitous  governmental  methods  of 
his  day.     Upon  a  visitation  of  Trinity  by  Lord  Clare  in 
1798  he  was  convicted  of  complicity  in  the  revolutionary 
movement  of  the  United  Irishmen  and  suffered  suspension 
from  the  exercise  of  all  College  functions  for  a  period  of 
three  years.     He  was  an  intimate  friend  and  associate  of 
Wolfe  Tone,  and  the  latter  often  refers  to  him  in  his  cele- 
brated Diary  in  terms  of  the  deepest  respect.     He  regarded 
Stokes  as  '  the  fitting  head  of  a  system  of  National  Educa- 
tion '   in  case  Ireland  should  succeed  in  recovering  her 
independence.     Under  date    1790  he   mentions    '  Whitley 
Stokes,  a  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  a  man  the  extent  and 
variety  of  whose  knowledge  is  only  to  be  exceeded  by  the 
number  and  intensity  of  his  virtues.'    He  says  further  of  him, 
'  With  regard  to   Whitley   Stokes,   his   political   opinions 
approach  nearer  to  mine  than  those  of  either  Knox  or 
Burrowes.     I  mention  this,  for  in  these  days  of  unbounded 
discussion   politics   unfortunately    enter   into    everything, 
even  into  our  private  friendships.     We,  however,  differ  on 
many  material  points,  and  we  differ  on  principles  which  do 
honour  to  Stokes's  heart.     With  an  acute  feeling  of  the 
degradation  of  his  country,  and  a  just  and  generous  indigna- 
tion against  her  oppressors,  the  tenderness  and  humanity  of 
his  disposition  is  such  that  he  recoils  from  any  measures  to 
be  attempted  for  her  emancipation  which  may  terminate  in 
blood  ;  in  this  respect  I  have  not  the  virtue  to  imitate  him. 
I   must  observe  that,   with  this,   perhaps  extraordinary, 
anxiety  for  the  lives  of  others,  I  am  sure  in  any  cause  which 
satisfied  his  conscience,  no  man  would  be  more  prodigal  of 
his  own  life  than  Whitley  Stokes,  for  he  is  an  enthusiast  in 
his  nature,  but  "  what  he  would  highly  that  would  he 


i 


WHITLEY  STOKES  ^7 

holily,"  and  I  am  afraid  that  in  the  present  state  of  affairs 
that  is  a  thing  impossible.  I  love  Stokes  most  sincerely. 
With  a  most  excellent  and  highly-cultivated  mind,  he 
possesses  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  best  and 
most  feeling  heart,  and  I  am  sure  it  will  not  hurt  the  self-love 
of  any  of  the  friends  whose  names  I  have  recorded,  when  I 
say  that  in  the  full  force  of  the  phrase  I  look  upon  Whitley 
Stokes  as  the  very  best  man  I  have  ever  known.'  He  also 
says  of  him  in  recording  the  incidents  of  a  journey  to 
Belfast,  '  Stokes  returned  from  Scotland.  Had  a  narrow 
escape  of  being  drowned,  the  ship  he  came  in  being  wrecked 
on  the  northern  coast.  A  million  of  pities  if  it  had  been  so. 
Stokes  is  one  of  the  best  heads  and  hearts  that  I  know,  and 
a  man  whom  I  regard  as  much  as  any  other  living.'  This 
Whitley  Stokes  died  in  1845. 

His  son  was  WiUiam  Stokes,  M.D.  In  his  profession  he 
was  regarded  by  Sir  George  Edward  Paget  as  the  most 
distinguished  physician  at  the  time  in  Europe.  His  statue 
by  Foley  may  be  seen  in  the  Hall  of  the  College  of  Physicians, 
DubUn.  He  graduated  in  Edinburgh  in  1825,  and  was 
elected  physician  to  the  Meath  Hospital.  In  1843  he  was 
appointed  Regius  Professor  of  Medicine  at  Trinity  College. 
He  enjoyed  an  extensive  practice,  and  wrote  a  valuable 
treatise  on  diseases  of  the  heart  that  still  finds  a  place  in  the 
libraries  of  medical  men.  The  name  of  the  terrible  symptom 
called  '  Cheyne-Stokes  breathing '  is  a  testimony  to  his 
success  in  pioneer  research  work.  But  though  celebrated  as 
a  physician  he  is  chiefly  remembered  now  for  his  interest  in 
Irish  Antiquities,  Music  and  Language,  and  for  his  enthusi- 
astic patronage  of  those  and  kindred  studies.  While 
residing  in  York  Street,  Dublin,  and  later  in  Merrion  Square, 
his  house  became  on  Saturday  nights  the  salon  for  all  that 
was  intellectual  and  cultured  in  the  city.  O' Donovan, 
O' Curry,  the  Fergusons,  Todd,  Burton  and  Petrie  were 
regular  visitors  and  found  there,  and  there  only,  an  environ- 
ment congenial  to  their  tastes  and  studies.  Petrie,  the 
veteran  artist,  antiquary  and  musician,  was  a  special  friend. 


68  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

Dr.  William  Stokes  sometimes  led  his  friends  upon  archaeo- 
logical and  scientific  excursions  into  the  Irish  districts  of 
Ireland,  going  as  far  afield  once  as  to  the  Isles  of  Aran  on 
the  western  coast.  In  his  book,  The  Life  and  Labours  in 
Art  and  Archceology  of  George  Peirie,  which  he  wrote  in 
1866-7,  he  gives  a  vivid  description  of  a  music  collecting 
scene  in  a  western  island  cottage.  Petrie  hastily  sketched 
the  air  from  the  singer  and  afterwards  reproduced  it  on  the 
fiddle.  He  was  accustomed  to  play  such  airs  at  the  meet- 
ings in  Dublin  seated  in  a  dark  corner  of  the  room  with  his 
face  to  the  wall.  I  happened  to  play  some  Irish  airs  and  a 
few  reels  for  Whitley  Stokes  at  Camberley  in  Surrey  on  the 
occasion  of  a  visit  to  him  some  time  ago,  and  he  paid  me  the 
compliment  of  saying  that  he  had  not  heard  the  fiddle  speak 
with  that  voice  since  he  last  heard  Petrie  play  in  his  father's 
house  fifty  years  before.  Foreigners  who  wished  to  see 
what  was  best  and  most  enlightened  in  Dublin  naturally 
found  their  way  to  York  Street.  In  the  journal  of  his  visit 
to  Ireland  Thomas  Carlyle  describes  a  dinner-party  to  which 
he  was  invited  there,  and  gives  some  account  of  the  com- 
pany. He  makes  mention  of  Whitley  Stokes  as  a  young 
man  who  carved.  This  used  to  be  afterwards  laughingly 
characterised  by  Dr.  Stokes  as  a  slight  misstatement, 
because  it  happened  that  carving  was  just  the  accomplish- 
ment he  could  never  lay  claim  to.  Unfortunately,  Carlyle 
was  displeased  with  his  visit  to  Ireland,  and  the  description 
of  what  he  saw  is  conceived  in  a  petulant  key.  And 
considering  that  he  had  eaten  salt  upon  the  occasion,  his 
bad  temper  seems  but  a  poor  excuse  for  bad  manners.  See 
the  place  referred  to  in  his  collected  works. 

Thus  did  Dr.  William  Stokes  and  his  band  of  savants, 
by  constant,  earnest  and  rationally  directed  labour,  make 
the  first  beginnings  of  a  work  that  has  nowadays  assumed 
national  proportions.  It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that 
they  wrought  in  an  age  when  their  efforts  were  not  appreci- 
ated, and  had  to  await  recognition  from  a  generation  at  the 
time  unborn.     Even  those  who  shared  in  their  tastes  were 


WHITLEY  STOKES  -^ 

opposed  to  them.  For  that  was  the  period  of  bogus 
Philology  and  Archaeology,  when  persons  wrote  laboured 
works  in  Dublin  iru  support  of  the  thesis  that  Gaelic  was 
spoken  by  Adam,  or  that  the  Round  Towers  were  of  Oriental 
origin  and  dated  from  prehistoric  times.  Stokes  and  his 
school  insisted,  on  the  other  hand,  that  theory  must  not 
precede  but  follow  on  a  calm  discussion  of  ascertained  facts, 
historical,  linguistic  and  archaeological.  An  examination 
of  Petrie's  celebrated  '  Essay  on  the  origin  and  uses  of  the 
Round  Towers  '  will  reveal  for  us  the  scientific  temper  with 
which  he  and  his  associates  were  imbued,  while  the  outcry 
raised  against  that  epoch-making  book  will  give  us  the 
battle  march  of  the  misguided  hosts  that  were  leagued 
against  them.  It  is  impossible  to  calculate  the  total  influ- 
ence of  Dr.  William  Stokes  upon  the  movement  that  is  now 
reinspiring  Ireland.  His  influence  reached  even  myself. 
For  my  father,  having  occasion  to  consult  him  when  I  was 
very  young,  was  eagerly  questioned  if  he  spoke  Irish  and 
whether  he  used  it  habitually  in  the  family.  Upon  his 
answering  both  questions  in  the  affirmative.  Dr.  Stokes 
thanked  him  with  a  heartiness  that  he  never  forgot.  That 
happened  at  a  time  when  nobody  dreamt  of  suggesting  that 
Irish  should  be  preserved  as  a  spoken  tongue.  The  children 
on  our  farm  and  those  next  door  learned  to  speak  Irish, 
whereas  not  one  single  child  reared  on  any  of  the  surrounding 
farms  can  either  speak  or  understand  it.  In  after  years 
when  helping  Whitley  Stokes  to  interpret  many  a  difficult 
passage  in  Middle  Irish  texts  he  never  suspected  that  the 
seed  of  the  knowledge  which  I  displayed  was  sown  when  his 
father  once  spoke  a  kindly  and  thoughtful  word  in  his  office 
in  Dublin. 

Whitley  Stokes,  the  subject  of  my  paper,  was  a  son  of 
Dr.  William  Stokes.  It  is  easy  to  understand  how  he, 
having  been  born  into  such  surroundings  and  brought  up 
in  them,  should  have  his  tastes  fixed  for  him  at  an  early 
period  in  life.  Very  probably  the  little  boy  who  heard 
O'Donovan  jocosely  lampoon  0' Curry  in  bad  poetry  for  a 


70  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

style  of  translation  that  carefully  concealed  ignorance  even 
if  it  failed  to  retain  the  sense,  never  thought  that  he  should 
one  day  have  a  deeper  knowledge  of  Irish  lore  than  either  of 
them,  and  be  able  kindly  to  indulge  the  mistakes  of  both. 
He  was  born  in  1830,  as  already  stated,  and  studied  in  Trinity 
College,  Dublin,where  he  gained  high  honours  in  Mathematics. 
It  is  remarkable  that  a  man  who  was  destined  to  become 
one  of  the  foremost  of  modern  philologists  should  have  been 
subjected  for  so  long  to  a  strenuous  course  of  exclusively 
legal  training.  It  is  certain  that  he  owed  his  great  philo- 
logical knowledge  to  the  very  same  cause  to  which  I  refer 
whatever  little  modicum  of  skill  I  possess  in  that  science, 
viz.  an  interest  in  Irish.  He  brought  his  love  for  Irish  from 
his  father's  household,  and  he  continued  to  cherish  the  study 
of  it  during  all  the  years  of  his  professional  course.  He 
was  called  to  the  English  Bar  in  1855,  having  studied  with 
such  gi:eat  jurists  as  H.  M.  Cairns,  T.  Chitty  and  A.  Cay  ley. 
From  that  year  until  1862  he  practised  as  an  equity 
draughtsman  and  conveyancer,  publishing  during  the 
period  a  work  on  the  Liens  of  Legal  Practitioners,  and 
another  on  Powers  of  Attorney,  In  the  latter  year  he  went 
to  India  and  became  a  member  of  the  Madras  Bar.  Thence- 
forward his  promotion  in  his  profession  was  very  rapid. 
He  was  reporter  to  the  High  Court  at  Madras  and  Act- 
ing Administrator-General  in  1863-64,  Secretary  to  the 
Governor-General's  Legislative  Council  and  to  the  Govern- 
ment of  India  in  the  Legislative  Department  from  1865  to 
1867,  and  Law  Member  of  the  Governor-General's  Council 
from  1877  to  1882.  He  was  also  President  of  the  Indian 
Law  Commission  in  1879.  His  skill  as  a  draughtsman  of 
legal  enactments  was  noticed  very  early  in  his  Indian  career, 
and  from  beginnings  then  made  he  continued  for  many 
years  until  he  had  performed  the  truly  herculean  task  of 
draughting  and  codifying  practically  the  whole  of  the  codes 
of  civil  and  criminal  procedure  at  present  in  use.  Those 
include  many  Indian  Consolidation  Acts  and  the  legal  texts 
dealing  with  transfer  of  property,  trusts,  easements,  specific 


WHITLEY  STOKES  71 

^nef,  and  limitation.  In  the  meantime  he  issued  several 
works  deaUng  with  Indian  legal  subjects,  including  The 
Indian  Succession  Acts,  The  Indian  Companies  Acts,  The 
Anglo-Indian  Codes,  and  The  Older  Statutes  in  Force  in 
India,  Proof  of  his  activity  in  Keltic  scholarship  at  the 
same  time  is  afforded  by  the  publication  of  his  works, 
Ooidelica  in  Calcutta  in  1866 ;  Middle  Breton  Hours,  Calcutta, 
1876  ;  Three  Middle-Irish  Homilies,  Calcutta,  1877 ;  and 
Togail  Troi,  Calcutta,  1881.  His  care  for  Indian  classics  is 
shown  also  by  a  scheme  which  he  devised  for  discovering, 
collecting,  cataloguing,  and  preserving  Sanskrit  manuscripts. 
In  1882  he  returned  home  and  lived  sometimes  in  London 
and  sometimes  in  Camberley,  with  occasional  visits  to 
Dublin  for  research  work  amidst  the  great  manuscript 
collections  there,  and  some  winterings  in  the  south  of  France. 
Being  entirely  free  from  legal  cares  he  devoted  himself 
almost  exclusively  to  the  science  of  Keltics.  In  that 
domain  his  patient  industry,  his  energy  and  his  genius  are 
without  parallel.  He  published  books,  he  filled  all  the 
learned  journals  appertaining  to  his  study,  and  wrote 
numerous  articles  in  popular  publications,  such  as  the 
Saturday  Review,  The  Academy,  and  Fraser's  Magazine. 
In  truth  his  loss  means  that  many  of  the  scientific  Keltic 
journals  must  make  their  appearance  in  a  very  emaciated 
and  anaemic  condition  until  some  one  or  more  than  one  are 
found  to  take  his  place.  His  interests  embraced  not  only 
the  philological,  the  grammatical  and  the  literary  aspects  of 
his  study,  and  he  was  foremost  in  each  of  those,  but  extended 
also  into  the  cognate  realms  of  Religion,  Medicine,  Law,  Folk- 
lore and  Anthropology.  The  apparatus  criticus  of  Intro- 
duction, Notes,  Glossary  and  Indices  with  which  his  works 
are  edited  display  a  marvellous  acquaintance  with  little- 
known  sources,  and  a  truly  encyclopaedic  knowledge  of 
contemporary  sciences.  The  wonder  is  that  one  man  could 
find  time  to  read  and  write  so  much.  Indeed,  it  is  entirely 
owing  to  his  industry  that  we  can  nowadays  enjoy  a  sectional 
view  of  Middle  Irish  literature  without  being  under  the 


72  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

necessity  of  grubbing  it  laboriously  from  MSS.  and  fac- 
similes, and  of  course  the  aids  to  an  understanding  of  texts 
afforded  by  his  translations,  notes  and  glossarial  matter  are 
priceless.  If  the  results  of  his  labours  are  excluded,  then 
there  remains  but  very  little  Irish  accessible  to  ordinary 
readers.  In  editing  and  translation  he  always  aimed  at 
rigid  scientific  accuracy.  His  translations  are  in  a  peculiarly 
limpid,  pliable  and  nervous  English  style  that  was  all  his 
own,  and  that  one  could  see  reflected  a  great  deal  of  the  pure 
white  classic  glow  of  his  originals.  His  knowledge  of  Middle 
English  enabled  him  often  to  find  an  equivalent  for  an 
Irish  term  that  is  wanting  in  modern  English.  In  such 
cases  he  never  scrupled  to  use  the  obsolete  word.  This  fact 
and  an  acquaintance  with  the  idiom  and  tune  of  Middle 
English  helped  to  contribute  a  savour  of  archaism  that 
blent  with  his  style  and  added  to  it  some  of  the  charm  of  the 
olden  times  when  English  was  written  in  words  and  not  in 
phrases.  I  once  accused  him  in  fun  of  being  the  heresiarch 
of  the  Keltic  Note,  for  the  sectaries  of  that  cult,  having 
been  started  by  Arnold,  had  perforce  to  turn  to  the  beautiful 
translations  of  Stokes  as  the  only  Keltic  intellectual  pabulum 
accessible  to  them,  for  they  themselves  knew  no  Keltic 
language.  He  admitted  I  was  right,  and  added  it  was 
highly  curious  how  they  had  evolved  a  style  and  spirit  from 
the  material  that  was  diametrically  opposed  to  Kelticism. 
For  whereas  they  were  all  befogged,  and  lived  by  preference 
in  the  loneliness  of  twilight  bogs,  seeing  for  ever  that  which 
was  purposely  indefinite  on  a  flitting  grey  background,  Irish 
literature  (now,  with  the  possible  exception  of  a  small 
quantity  of  early  Welsh  poetry,  the  only  reflex  of  Keltic 
thought  and  feeling)  is  strong,  manly,  purposeful,  sharply 
defined  in  outline,  frankly  realistic  and  pitiless  in  logic. 
He  said  that  the  modem  French  style  was  not  more  accurate, 
more  orderly,  or  of  clearer  definition  than  Irish  prose.  In 
editing  texts  he  always  consistently  relegated  scribal  errors 
and  palpably  wrong  forms  to  a  footnote,  and  substituted  the 
correct  form  in  the  text.     Some  objected  to  that  procedure 


WHITLEY  STOKES  73 

as  interfering  with  the  exact  rendering  of  the  MS.  But  the 
MS.  reading  was  always  given  at  the  bottom  of  the  page, 
and  furthermore  Stokes's  system,  besides  giving  the  MS. 
text,  presented  in  addition  a  critical  emendation  of  errors. 
The  opposite  practice  of  putting  the  corrected  form  in  a  foot- 
note and  leaving  the  MS.  reading  stand  is  the  more  usual. 
However,  that  is  a  matter  of  very  trivial  moment. 

Of  slightly  graver  significance  is  a  charge  that  has  been 
pretty  generally  alluded  to  in  the  newspaper  notices  of 
Stokes's  death,  viz.  that  he  was  over-trenchant  and  scathing 
in  literary  controversy.  If  in  that  article  he  exhibited  a 
little  of  the  perfervidum  genus  Scottorum  it  must  be  admitted 
that  he  got  as  good  as  he  gave,  and  often  from  those  who  had 
no  racial  excuse  for  a  choleric  temperament.  Perhaps 
Keltists  generally  have  shown  more  anger  and  jealousy  than 
persons  engaged  in  other  studies.  The  fact  is  they  are 
known  to  each  other  mostly  through  their  writings  and 
not  personally.  And  it  is  a  well-known  fact  that  many 
men  give  but  a  poor  presentment  of  their  intimate  person- 
alities in  their  published  works,  especially  when  it  is  con- 
sidered that  those  are  not  always  formally  of  an  auto- 
biographical nature.  Stokes's  controversies  were  chiefly, 
if  not  entirely,  concerned  with  Dr.  B.  McCarthy,  a  priest  of 
the  Diocese  of  Cloyne,  with  Professor  Atkinson  of  Dublin, 
both  now  deceased,  and  with  Professor  H.  Zimmer,  at  present 
Professor  of  Keltic  Languages  in  the  University  of  Berlin. 
I  knew  all  of  those,  with  the  exception  of  Professor  Atkinson, 
and  so  far  as  I  could  see  they  did  not  succeed  in  externating 
their  individualities  in  prose  treatises  that  dealt  mostly 
with  questions  of  Irish  Grammar  and  Philology.  Stokes's 
pure  and  classic  style,  with  his  ever-rigid  exactness,  con- 
jured up  an  imaginary  vision  of  a  very  thin  man,  greatly 
stooped  in  the  shoulders,  with  a  very  aquiline  nose,  piercing 
eyes,  and  a  corrugated  brow.  What  a  surprise  to  those  who 
met  him  in  the  flesh  for  the  first  time,  with  his  well-over  six 
feet  of  portly  humanity,  straight  as  a  whip,  with  his  broad 
shoulders,  his  fine  face  and  Napoleon  beard,  with  his  un- 


74  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

furrowed  brow,  and  his  kindly,  laughing  eye  as  he  discoursed 
of  the  humours  of  great  men  in  Dublin  long  ago,  or  recounted 
jokes  from  the  Indian  jungle,  or  incidents  from  the  Tain  ho 
Cvxdnge  made  whimsical  by  modern  contrasts,  or  shook  his 
sides  in  laughter  at  some  folly  or  foible  of  some  one  or  other 
of  the  whole  of  us.  And  withal  he  was  gentle-mannered  as  a 
child  and  kindly  with  the  considerateness  of  the  true 
gentleman.  Or  take  Zimmer.  Once  during  a  week  in 
Harvard,  where  I  was  the  guest  of  Fred  N.  Robinson,  the 
Professors  there  showed  a  great  interest  in  Zimmer,  and  in 
me  as  a  past  pupil  of  his.  I  said  he  was  the  mildest- 
mannered  man  I  ever  knew.  Some  one  remarked  that  his 
idea  of  him  was  as  the  Royal  Tiger  of  Greifswald,  the  path- 
way to  whose  den  was  strewn  with  the  bones  of  his  enemies. 
'  Why,'  said  I,  hurling  a  terrible  secret  upon  an  innocent  and 
totally  unprepared  audience,  '  Zimmer  wears  Dundreary 
whiskers  !  '  And  I  then  explained  that  he  had  the  brain  of 
an  angel,  the  simplicity  of  a  child,  and  the  hospitality  of 
King  Guaire  of  Connaught.  Or  Thurneysen.  Who  never 
says  a  word  too  much,  who  is  always  exact,  always  right, 
always  as  hard  and  impassive  as  blue  steel,  but  whom  I 
grieve  to  have  to  report  as  an  abandoned  joker.  How  his 
laugh  used  to  resound  in  the  Schlossberg  over  Freiburg,  or  in 
the  deeps  of  the  Schwartzwald,  or  again  those  nights  at  his 
house  when  we  used  to  begin  to  read  in  the  Wilrzhurg 
Glosses  with  the  most  exemplary  of  intentions,  but  finding 
something  at  the  start  which  we  were  foolishly  pleased  to 
regard  as  funny,  we  lost  aU  grip  of  our  faces  and  gave  way  to 
the  most  unseemly  laughter  until  the  bell  rang  for  supper. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  great  want  amongst  Keltic  scholars 
is  an  annual  congress  to  be  held,  say,  in  New  York  City  (for 
American  colleges  are  bringing  the  Keltic  centre  of  gravity 
every  day  further  to  the  west),  at  which  they  could  see  and 
learn  to  know  each  other,  and  plan  work  and  apportion  its 
performance  in  an  organised  and  orderly  manner.  The 
relations  between  individual  workers  would  be  all  the  easier 
and  it  would  conduce  to  the  noteworthy  gain  of  Keltic  letters. 


WHITLEY  STOKES  75 

But  though  mighty  in  debate  Whitley  Stokes  never 
harboured  resentment.  There  was  an  ancient  literary  feud 
between  him  and  Zimmer,  the  exact  rights  of  which  I  never 
knew.  In  the  spring  of  1898  Dr.  Zimmer  was  stricken  by  a 
very  dangerous  illness,  and  lay  for  about  ten  days  in  a 
highly  serious  condition.  I  was  his  pupil  at  the  time  in 
Greif swald,  and  being  very  much  attached  to  such  a  kind  and 
generous  master,  I  visited  his  sick  chamber  every  day. 
Meantime  I  kept  some  Keltist  friends  in  various  countries 
daily  informed  of  the  progress  of  his  malady.  I  remember 
receiving,  practically  every  day,  a  letter  from  Whitley 
Stokes  full  of  the  kindest  inquiries  and  the  tenderest 
solicitude  for  Zimmer.  Those  I  used  to  read  at  the  bedside. 
I  think  Zimmer  and  Stokes  never  met.  I  make  no  doubt 
they  would  have  been  great  friends — both  men  of  single 
motives,  both  gentle  souls  adverse  to  the  causing  of  pain,  and 
with  minds  endowed  beyond  what  is  given  to  common  men. 

I  shall  set  down  here  a  list  of  the  principal  works  of 
Whitley  Stokes.  This  list  I  owe  to  the  kindness  of  his 
daughter.  Miss  A.  M.  Stokes.  There  is  no  account  taken 
here  of  the  more  occasional  pieces  contributed  to  publica- 
tions of  an  ephemeral  kind,  as  their  exhaustive  inclusion 
would  need  a  very  long  and  trying  search  out  of  proportion 
to  the  requirements  of  the  present  paper.  The  first  issue  of 
this  magazine  contained  a  paper  by  Whitley  Stokes  on 
*  Ancient  Irish  Riddles,'  and  probably  the  last  article  he 
contributed  to  any  periodical  was  that  which  appeared  in 
the  April  number  of  The  Celtic  Review, 

List  of  Philological  Publications 

1860.  Irish  Glosses.   Published  by  the  Irish  Archaeological  and  Celtic  Society. 
1862.  Three  Irish  Glossaries.     London,  Williams  &  Norgate. 
1862.  The  Middle-English  Play  of  the  Sacrament.     Published  by  Ascher  & 
Company,  Berlin,  for  the  Philological  Society. 

1862.  The  Passion.     A  Middle-Cornish  poem.     Ascher  &  Company,  for  the 

Philological  Society. 

1863.  The  Creation  of  the  World.     A  Cornish  Mystery. 

1877.  Three  Middle-Irish  Homilies.     Calcutta.     (Dated  1871  in  Wlio's  Who.) 


76  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

1872.  (Joidelioa  (2nd  Edition).     London,  Triibner  &  Company.     1st  Edition, 

Calcutta,  1866. 
1872.  The  Life  of  Saint  Meriasek.     A  Cornish  Drama.     London,  Triibner 

&  Company. 
1876.  Middle-Breton  Hours.     Calcutta. 

1880.  The  Calendar  of  Oengus.     Transactions  of  the  Royal  Irish  Academy. 

1881.  Togail  Troi.     Calcutta. 

1883.  Saltair  na  Rann.     Anecdota  Oxoniensa,  Clarendon  Press. 

1887.  The  Tripartite  Life  of  St.   Patrick.     Master  of  the   Rolls  Series, 

London. 
1887.  The  Old-Irish  Glosses  at  Wiirzburg  and  Carlsruhe.     The  Philological 

Society. 
1890.  Lives  of  Saints  from  the  Book  of  Lismore.     Anecdota  Oxoniensa. 

Clarendon  Press. 

1894.  Urkeltischer  Sprachschatz  (in  collaboration  with  Prof.  Bezzenberger), 

Gottingen. 

1895.  The  Martyrology  of  Gorman.     London,  Henry  Bradshaw  Society. 

1896.  The  Rennes  Dindsenchus.     Revue  Celtique,  xvi. 

1897.  The  Annals  of  Tigernach.     Revue  Celtique,  xvi.-xvill. 

1898.  The  Gaelic  Marco  Polo,  Maundeville   and  Fierabras.     Zeitschrift  f. 

Celt.  Phil.  I.,  II.,  and  Revue  Celtique,  xix. 

1899.  The  Eulogy  of  St.  Columba.     Revue  Celtique,  XX. 
1901.  Da  Derga's  Hostel.     Revue  Celtique,  xxii, 

1905.  The  Martyrology  of  Oengus.     London,  Henry  Bradshaw  Society. 
1909.  In  Cath  Catharda  (not  yet  published).     Irische  Texte,  Leipzig. 

Papers  in  Beitrage  zur  vergl.  Sprachforschung  auf  dem  Gebiete 
DER  Arischen,  Celtischen  und  Slavischen  Sprachen.  Kuhn  u. 
Schleicher,  8  vols.,  Berlin,  1858-1876 

Vol.  I.  Bemerkungen  iiber  die  irische  Declination.     W.  S.  (dated  Merrion 

Square,  Dublin,  October  24th,  1857). 
Vol.  IL    (1)  Gallische  Inschriften.     W.  S.,  March  1859. 

(2)  Die  Endung  der  1  pers.  sg.  praes.  indie,  act.  in  neu-irischen. 

W.  S.,  March  1859. 

(3)  Zur  vergleichenden  Syntax.     1860. 

Vol.  III.  (1)  Bemerkungen  iiber  das  altirische  verbum.     1860. 

(2)  Ueber  die  Inschrift  Todi.     1860. 

(3)  Cornisches,  1861. 

Vol.  IV.  Die  Glossen  und  Verse  in  dem  Codex  des  Juvencus  zu  Cambridge. 

1864. 
Vol.    v.  Die  Mittelbretonischen  unregelmassigen  Verba.     1866. 
Vol.  vl  (1)  Miscelanea  Celtica  von  dem  verstorbenen  R.  T.  Siegfried.    W.  S. 

(2)  Endliches  Glossar.     1867. 

(3)  Das  Altirische  Verbum. 


WHITLEY  STOKES  11 

'oL.  VII.  (1)  Das  Altirische  Verbum. 

(2)  Der  Accusativ  pluralis  in  den  britischen  Sprachen.     1869. 

(3)  The  Old- Welsh  Glosses  on  Martianus  Capella. 

(4)  The  Old- Welsh  Glosses  on  Juvencus,  1872. 

(5)  Zum  keltischen  Passivum.     1872. 

Vol.  VIII.  (1)  On  the  Celtic  Additions  to  Curtius'  Greek  Mythology. 
1874. 

Papers  in  Bezzenberger  Beitrage  zur  Kunde  der 
Indogermanischen  Sprachen 

Vol.  XI.  1886.  Celtic  Declension. 

Vol.  XVI.  1890.  On  Professor   Atkinson's   Edition   of    the   Passions   and 

Homilies  in  the  Lebar  Brecc. 
Vol.  XVII.  1891.  Glosses  from  Turin  and  Eome. 
Vol.  XVIII.  1892.  On  the  Linguistic  Value  of  the  Irish  Annals. 
Vol.  XIX.  1893.  On  the  Metrical  Glossaries  of  the  Mediaeval  Irish. 
Vol.  XXI.  1896.  Celtic  Etymologies. 
Vol.  XXIII.  1897.  Celtic  Etymologies. 
Vol.  XXV.  1899.  Fifty  Irish  Etymologies. 
Vol.  XXIX.  1905.  Celtica. 

Papers  in  Zeitschrift  fur  Vergleichende  Sprachforschung, 
ed.  by  A.  Kuhn 

VoK  XXXVI.  1883.  The  Breton  Glosses  at  Orleans.  The  Irish  Passages  in 
the  Stowe  Missal  (both  printed  privately  originally  in  Calcutta, 
1880). 

Vol.  XXVIII.  1887.  The  Old- Irish  Verb-substantive. 

Vol.  XXIX.  1888.  Irish  Glosses  and  Notes  on  Chalcidius. 
Irish  stems  in  S. 

Vol.  XXX.  1890.  The  Old-Irish  Glosses  in  Regina,  215. 

Vol.  XXXI.  1892.  Hibernica. 

Vol.  XXXIII.  1895.  Hibernica,  viii.  ix.  x. 

Old  Irish  Glosses  on  the  Bucolics. 

Vol.  XXXV.  1899.  Hibernica,  xi.-xiv. 

Vol.  XXXVI.  1900.  Hibernica,  xviii.-xxiii. 

Vol.  XXXVII.  1904.  Hibernica,  xxiv.-xxvi. 

Vol.  XXXVIII.  1905.  Hibernica,  xxvii. 

Vol.  XXXIX.  1906.  Hibernica,  xxviii. 

Vol.  XL.  1907.  Irish  Etymologies. 

Vol.  xli.  1907.  Irish  Etyma. 

Papers  in  Indogermanischen  Forschungen 

Vol.  II.  On  the  assimilation  of  pretonic  N  in  Celtic  suffixes. 
Vol.  XII.  Irish  Etymologies. 
Vol.  XXII.  S-presents  in  Irish. 


78  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Papers  in  Folk-Lork 

Vol.  III.  The  Bodleian  Dinnsenchas. 
Vol.  IV.  The  Edinburgh  Dinnsenchas. 

Papers  in  the  Revue  Celtique 
Vol.  I.  1870-72. 

(1)  Mythological  Notes. 

(2)  The  Manumissions  in  the  Bodmin  Gospels. 

(3)  Le  Catholicon  de  J.  Lagaduc. 
Vol.  II.  1873-75. 

(1)  Mythological  Notes. 

(2)  A  Middle-Irish  Homily  on  St.  Martin  of  Tours. 

(3)  The  Klosterneuberg  Incantation. 

(4)  A  conjectural  emendation  of  Pliny. 

(5)  The  Ancient  Irish  Goddess  of  War. 
Vol.  in.  1876-78. 

(1)  On  the  Celtic  comparisons  in  Bopp's  Comparative  Grammar. 

(2)  Cuchulainn's  Death  abridged  from  the  Book  of  Leinster. 

(3)  On   the  Gaelic    Names  in   the  Landanamabok    and    Runic 

Inscriptions. 

(4)  Cornica. 

(5)  A  parallel. 

(6)  Leabhar  Breac. 

(7)  Review  of  O'Curry's  book  On  the  Manners  and  Customs  of 

the  Ancient  Irish. 
Vol.  IV.  1879-80. 

(1)  Tidings  of  Doomsday. 

(2)  Cornica. 

(3)  Old  Breton  Glosses. 
Vol.  v.  1881-83. 

(1)  On  the  Calendar  of  Oengus. 

(2)  Four  new  Gaulish  Inscriptions. 

(3)  Irish  Folklore. 

(4)  Another  parallel. 
Vol.  vl  1883-85. 

(1)  On  the   Metre    Rinnard   and   the   Calendar  of    Oengus    as 

illustrating  the  Irish  Verbal  Accent. 

(2)  Criticism  of  Atkinson's  Lecture  on  Irish  Metric. 

(3)  Remarks    on    Mr.    Fitzgerald's    Early    Celtic    History   and 

Mythology. 

(4)  Extracts  from  the  Franciscan  Liber  Hymnorum. 

(5)  Mythological  Notes. 
Vol.  vn.  1886. 

(1)  Find  and  the  Phantoms. 

(2)  Early  Middle  Irish  Glosses. 


WHITLEY  STOKES  79 

'oi"  vm.  1887. 

(1)  The  Siege  of  Howth. 

(2)  The  Irish  Verses,  Notes,  and  Glosses  in  Harl.  1802. 
'Vol.  IX.  1888. 

(1)  The  Voyage  of  Snedguss  and  Mac  Riagla. 

(2)  On  the  Materia-Medica  of  the  Mediaeval  Irish. 

(3)  The  Voyage  of  Maelduin. 

(4)  Zimmeriana. 

(5)  Corrections  of  a  recent  edition  of  the  Wiirzburg  Glosses. 

(6)  Note  on  the  personal  appearance  and  death  of  Christ,  His 

Apostles,  and  other 

(7)  Notes  on  the  Wiirzburg  Glosses. 
Vol.  X.  1889. 

The  Voyage  of  Maelduin. 
Vol.  XL  1890. 

A  Note  about  Fiacha  Muillethan. 
Vol.  xil  1891. 

(1)  The  second  battle  of  Moytura. 

(2)  Life  of  St.  Fechin  of  Fore. 

(3)  Adamnan's  second  Vision. 
Vol.  xiil  1892. 

(1)  The  Boroma. 

(2)  The  Battle  of  Mag  Mucrime. 
Vol.  XIV. 

(1)  The  Voyage  of  the  Hui  Corra. 

(2)  Old  Irish  Glosses  on  the  Bucolics  from  a  MS.  in  the  Bibl. 

National. 

(3)  The  violent  deaths  of  GoU  and  Garb. 
Vol.  XV.  1894. 

The  Prose  Tales  in  the  Rennes  Dindsenchas. 
Vol.  XVI. 

(1)  The  Prose  Tales  in  the  Rennes  Dindsenchas. 

(2)  The  Annals  of  Tigernach. 
Vol.  XVII. 

The  Annals  of  Tigernach. 
Vol.  XVIII. 

(1)  The  Annals  of  Tigernach. 

(2)  On  the  Dublin  edition  of  the  Annals  of  Ulster. 

(3)  The  Dublin  fragments  of  Tigernach's  Annals. 
Vol.  XIX.  1898. 

The  Irish  Version  of  Fierabras. 
Vol.  XX.  1899. 

The  Bodleian  Amra  Choluimb  chille. 
Vol.  XXI.  1900. 

(1)  The  Bodleian  Amra  Choluimb  chille. 

(2)  Da  Choca's  Hostel. 


80  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Vol,  XXII.  1901. 

The  Destruction  of  Da  Derga's  Hostel. 
Vol.  xxin.  1902. 

(1)  Notes  on  the  Martyrology  of  Oengus. 

(2)  On  the  death  of  some  Irish  Heroes. 

(3)  The  death  of  Muirchertach  mac  Erca. 
Vol.  xxiv.  1903. 

(1)  The  Battle  of  Allen. 

(2)  The  death  of  Crimthann  son  of  Fidach  and  the  adventure  of 

the  sons  of  Eochaid  Muigmedon. 

(3)  The  wooing  of  Luaine  and  death  of  Atherne. 

(4)  On  Dr.  Atkinson's  Glossary  to  Vols.  I.  and  v.  of  the  Ancient 

Laws  Ireland. 
Vol.  XXV.  1904. 

(1)  The  Songs  of  Buchet's  House. 

(2)  Tidings  of  the  Resurrection. 

(3)  The  Life  of  Fursa. 
Vol.  xxvi.  1905. 

(1)  The  Colloquy  of  the  two  Sages. 

(2)  The  Adventure  of  St.  Columba's  Clerics. 

(3)  Three  Legends  from  the  Brussels  MS.  5100-4. 
Vol.  XXVII.  1906. 

(1)  Irish  Etymologies. 

(2)  The  Birth  and  Life  of  St.  Moling. 
Vol.  xxviii.  1907. 

(1)  Notes  on  the  Birth  and  Life  of  St.  Moling. 

(2)  The  Fifteen  Tokens  of  Doomsday. 
Vol.  XXIX.  1908. 

(1)  The  Training  of  Cuchulainn. 

(2)  Old  Irish  Glosses  at  Laon. 

(3)  Addenda  and  Corrigenda. 

Papers  in  the  Zeitschrift  fur  Celtische  Philologie 

Vol.  i.  1897. 

(1)  A  Celtic  Leechbook. 

(2)  Cuimmin's  Poem  on  the  Saints  of  Ireland. 

(3)  The  Gaelic  abridgement  of  Ser  Marco  Polo. 
Vol.  II.  1899. 

(1)  The  Gaelic  Maundeville. 

(2)  Notes  on  the  St.  Gallen  Glosses. 
Vol.  in.  1901. 

(1)  The  destruction  of  Dind  Rig. 

(2)  A  list  of  ancient  Irish  Authors. 

(3)  The  Battle  of  Cam  Conaill. 


WHITLEY  STOKES  81 

(4)  Amra  Senain. 

(5)  Irish  Etymologies. 

(6)  On  a  passage  in  Cath  Cairn  Chonaill. 
'OL.  IV.  1903. 

On  the  Copenhagen  fragments  of  the  Brehon  Laws. 
Vol.  VI.  1908. 

Notes  on  the  2nd  edition  of  the  Martyrology  of  Oengus,    London, 
1905. 

Papers  in  the  Archiv  fur  Celtische  Lexikographie 

Vol.  I.  1900. 

(1)  A  list  of  Welsh  Plantnames. 

(2)  The  Lecan  Glossary. 

(3)  A  Glossary  to  the  Cornish  Drama  Bennan  and  Meriasek. 

(4)  A  Collation  of  the  Cartulary  of  QuimperleN 

(5)  A  Collation  of  Norris'  Ancient  Cornish  Drama. 

(6)  O'Mulconry's  Glossary. 

(7)  Three  Irish  Medical  Glossaries. 

(8)  A  Collation  of  the  second  edition  of  O'Clery's  Irish  Glossary. 

(9)  Suum  cuique. 
Vol.  il  1904. 

(1)  A  Collation  of  Skene's  edition  of  the  Book  of  Aneurin. 

(2)  O'Davoren's  Glossary. 
Vol.  m.  1907. 

(1)  Glossed  extracts  from  the  Tripartite  Life  of  St.  Patrick. 

(2)  The  Glossary  in  Egerton  158. 

(3)  Note  on  the  Glossary  in  Egerton  158. 

(4)  The  Stowe  Glossaries. 

(5)  Notes  on  the  Glossary  in  Egerton  158  Archiv  iii.  145-214, 

Papers  in  Eriu 
Vol.  II.  1905. 

(1)  The  Eulogy  of  Curoi. 

(2)  The  Evernew  Tongue. 
Vol.  in.  1907. 

(1)  On  two  Irish  expressions  for  '  Eight  Hand  '  and  '  Left  Hand." 

(2)  Notes  on  the  Evernew  Tongue. 
Vol.  IV.  Parti.  1908. 

Tidings  of  Conchobar  mac  Nessa. 

List  of  Legal  Publications 

1860.  Treatise  on  the  Liens  of  Legal  Practitioners. 

1861.  On  Powers  of  Attorney. 
1865.  Hindu  Law  Books,  Madras. 

VOL.  VI.  F 


82  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

1865.  The  Indian  Succession  Act  with  Commentary,  Calcutta. 

1866.  The  Indian  Companies'  Act,  with  Notes. 

1874.  The  Older  Statutes  in  Force  in  India,  with  Notes. 

1887-8.  The  Anglo-Indian  Codes,  2  vols. 

1889-91.  Supplements  to  Anglo-Indian  Codes. 

Also  draughtsman  of  many  Indian  Consolidation  Acts,  the  Codes  of  Civil 
and  Criminal  Procedure,  1882,  and  the  Acts  dealing  respectively  with 
Transfer  of  Property,  Trusts,  Easements,  Specific  Relief,  and  Limitation. 

Stokes  was,  besides,  joint  editor  with  his  lifelong  friend, 
Dr.  Windiseh,  of  the  Irische  Texte  series,  published  in 
Leipzig,  of  the  Archiv  fur  Celtische  Lexikographie  (1900-1907) 
and  with  John  Strachan  of  the  Thesaurus  Palaeohibernicus, 
published  between  1901  and  1903  by  the  Cambridge  Uni- 
versity. This  work,  in  two  splendid  volumes,  contains  all  the 
Old  Irish  extant  both  in  gloss  material  and  in  texts  with  a 
Translation,  Introduction,  Notes,  and  Indices.  The  plan  to 
add  an  Old-Irish  Glossary  as  volume  three  fell  through, 
owing  to  the  death  of  Strachan.  The  production  of  the 
Thesaurus  was  a  very  onerous  undertaking,  and  one  entailing 
an  infinity  of  arduous  labour.  The  whole  of  the  matter  it 
contains  had  been  published  previously,  but  in  rare  and 
scattered  journals,  so  that  there  was  a  crying  need  for  a 
uniform  and  compendious  issue  of  the  material  in  which 
later  accessions  to  Keltic  knowledge  might  be  embodied  in 
a  new  translation  and  notes.  By  the  completion  of  this 
very  heavy  task  they  have  conferred  an  inestimable  boon  on 
scholars  of  Old  Irish.  The  whole  book  is  furnished  with  a 
literal  English  translation,  except  where  an  Irish  word  is  a 
mere  rendering  for  a  Latin  word,  in  which  cases  the  Latin 
was  deemed  to  indicate  the  meaning  sufficiently.  Wherever 
the  editors  differed  on  questions  of  interpretation  the 
opinions  of  both  are  appended  in  a  footnote.  It  will  be 
noticed  in  the  preceding  list  that  Dr.  Stokes  edited  the 
Feliere  Oengusso  twice  ;  first  in  1880  for  the  Royal  Irish 
Academy,  and  again  in  1905  for  the  Henry  Bradshaw  Society. 
The  first  edition  reproduced  three  MS.  versions  with  transla- 
tion, the  second  presented  a  critically  reconstructed  text 
from  the  materials  afforded  by  ten  MSS.,   an  emended 


WHITLEY  STOKES  83 

translation,  besides  an  Introduction,  Notes,  Glossary,  and 
Indices.  The  Togail  Troi,  or  Destruction  of  Troy,  was  a 
difficult  and  very  important  text  brought  out  in  Calcutta  in 
1881.  From  the  numerous  citations  from  it  in  Windesch's 
edition  of  the  Tain  B6  Cualnge  one  can  judge  of  its  high 
value  as  an  aid  to  the  interpretation  of  the  difficult  language 
of  the  Cuchulainn  Sagas.  The  Saltair  na  Rann,  edited  in 
1883,  was  a  weighty  document  in  early  Middle-Irish  verse 
that  has  not  yet  been  fully  examined.  The  Tripartite  Life 
of  St.  Patrick,  so  called  from  the  fact  that  it  takes  the  form  of 
three  homilies,  in  addition  to  the  Life  itself,  embodied  all 
the  Patrician  documents  of  any  importance  both  in  Irish  and 
in  Latin.  The  edition  of  the  Wiirzhurg  Glosses,  published 
for  the  Archseological  Society  in  1887,  was  the  first  appear- 
ance of  such  a  work  with  an  English  translation.  Its 
material,  of  course,  was  embodied  later  in  the  Thesaurus, 
The  Lives  of  Saints  from  the  Book  of  Lismore  (1890)  was  a 
valuable  addition  to  Middle-Irish  hagiology  and  literature. 
In  the  Urkeltischer  Sprachschatz,  produced  conjointly  with 
Professor  Bezzenberger,  Dr.  Stokes  laid  the  foundations  for 
a  Keltic  Etymological  Dictionary  that  marvellously  holds 
its  place  still  in  spite  of  the  numerous  discoveries  that  have 
been  made  since  its  issue.  And  of  such  discoveries  many 
were  made  by  himself.  The  Martyr ology  of  Gorman  (1895), 
with  the  Felire  Oengusso  above,  comprise  the  whole  of  our 
Festological  books,  with  the  exception  of  the  Martyrology  of 
Donegal,  which  was  published  before  his  time  by  the  Dublin 
Archaeological  Society.  In  editing  the  Rennes  Dindsenchas 
(1896),  and  the  Annals  of  Tigernach  (1897),  besides  inter- 
preting his  texts  he  has  made  important  additions  to  our 
knowledge  of  history  and  topography.  He  published  some 
of  the  minor  Sagas,  and  many  of  his  works  are  in  a  high 
degree  useful  in  furnishing  keys  to  the  difficulties  by  which 
that  class  of  literature  is  still  beset,  and  the  Homilies,  Lives 
of  Saints,  and  Martjn^ologies  are  indispensable  to  the  Irish 
Church  historian. 

Broadly,  then,  his  work  embraced  scientific  criticism. 


84  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

lexicography,  philology,  exact  grammar,  history,  hagiology, 
folklore,  topography,  homiletic  and  ecclesiological  work, 
metric  and  mythology,  not  to  mention  other  departments  of 
research.  He  was,  before  all,  the  great  publisher  of  Middle- 
Irish  literature.  In  that  particular  nobody  even  approached 
him  in  amount  of  matter  or  in  the  quality  of  the  work. 
His  publications  cover  the  whole  period  of  historical  Irish, 
and  it  will  be  seen  that  his  philological  and  grammatical 
explorations  extended  from  Gaulish  inscriptions  to  the 
endings  of  the  modern  Irish  verb.  He  combined  the 
scientific  sense  for  linguistic  with  a  keen  feeling  for  the 
canons  of  literary  taste.  He  exemplified  his  possession  of 
this  latter  quality  by  his  oft  expressed  appreciation  of  the 
beauty  of  his  text  and  by  the  flawless  and  charming  English 
into  which  he  rendered  it.  His  country,  Ireland,  owes  him 
a  debt  for  a  long  and  laborious  life  spent  in  doing  her  the 
highest  possible  service,  a  debt  she  owed  to  nobody  since  the 
death  of  the  scribes  that  compiled  the  great  books  from 
which  he  worked.  Ferguson,  when  writing  to  a  friend  about 
Whitley  Stokes  when  a  young  man,  said  '  the  noisy  Irish  ' 
did  not  know  of  his  existence.  Indeed,  the  same  may  be 
truly  said  to-day  after  the  lapse  of  long  years,  when  the 
library  shelves  of  the  learned  are  groaning  with  the  rich 
harvests  he  gleaned  with  much  daily  toil  and  protracted 
nightly  vigils.  But  there  are  others  now  in  Ireland  besides 
*the  noisy.'  And  the  new  species  is  bound  to  multiply. 
For  many  are  now  eagerly  reading  his  works  and  learning  to 
give  honour  where  honour  is  due,  so  that  Whitley  Stokes  will 
one  day  come  into  his  own. 

It  is  but  fitting  to  add  that  the  best  traditions  of  his 
family  were  also  nobly  upheld  by  his  sister,  Miss  Margaret 
Stokes.  She  was  a  noted  artist,  antiquary,  and  a  specialist 
in  Church  history  research.  She  was  the  author  of  a  splendid 
little  handbook  on  Irish  Art  and  Architecture ;  she  edited  the 
Petrie  Collection  of  Irish  Inscriptions  with  illustrations,  and 
the  two  sumptuous  quarto  volumes  of  Lord  Dunraven, 
dealing  with  the  earlier  examples  of  Irish  architecture. 


PAN  CELTIC  NOTES  ^^^    85 

She  also  wrote  Six  Months  in  the  Apennines,  a  Pilgrimage  in 
Search  of  Vestiges  of  Irish  Saints  in  Italy,  and  Three  Months 
in  the  Forests  of  Frai^ce,  Her  tastes  had  been  fostered  and 
directed  by  Petrie,  and  she  followed  faithfully  in  his  foot- 
steps, leaving  an  honourable  legacy  to  her  country  as  became 
one  of  her  name. 

The  qualities  of  cheerfulness  of  demeanour,  suavity  of 
manner,  gentleness  of  voice,  and  sweetness  of  temper  that 
distinguished  Whitley  Stokes  in  the  family  were  appreciated 
by  all  who  had  the  good  fortune  to  witness  them.  He  was 
honoured  and  admired  by  strangers,  by  his  own  he  was 
adored.  He  was  devoted  to  his  family  with  all  the  tender- 
ness of  a  father's  heart,  drawing  pathetically  closer  to  them 
as  the  time  for  departure  approached.  In  the  death  of 
Whitley  Stokes  Ireland  lost  a  friend,  Keltic  scholars  a  leader, 
his  family  mourns  for  a  presence  that  was  the  household 
treasure  but  which  now  has  passed.  I  shall  conclude  by 
citing  a  translation  of  the  Old-Irish  colophon  by  which 
himself  and  Strachan  brought  their  great  labours  on  the 
Thesaurus  Palaeohibernicus  to  a  close  :  whoso  reads  this 
book  let  him  bestow  a  blessing  upon  the  soul  of  R.  A.  Neill 
and  upon  our  own  souls,  Whitley  Stokes  an  Irishman  and 
John  Strachan  a  Scotsman. 


PAN    CELTIC    NOTES 

The  long  fight  to  secure  for  Irish  a  place  among  the  essentials 
for  matriculation  in  the  national  university  goes  on  without 
either  side  gaining  much  definite  advantage.  To  one 
watching  from  a  distance,  it  seems  that  the  anti-Irish 
forces  are  entrenched  so  securely  in  the  strongholds  of 
office  that  the  shot  and  shell  of  the  patriotic  party — 
eloquent  orations,  enthusiastic  meetings,  resolutions  of 
public  bodies,  convincing  newspaper  articles — pass  over 
their  heads,  for  the  most  part  wasted  and  ineffective. 
Can  the  leaders  of  the  Gaelic  League  find  among  themselves 
no  strategist  capable  of  evolving  a  plan  of  campaign  which 


86  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

shall  make  better  use  of  the  loyalty  and  zeal  of  the  rank 
and  file  ?     If  not,  the  chances  of  victory  are  slight. 

Since  assuming  its  new  but  historic  name  of  The  Irish 
Nation,  our  old  friend  The  Peasant  has  printed  a  good  deal 
more  Irish  than  was  its  wont  theretofore,  and  has  gone  in, 
moreover,  for  a  suit  of  Gaelic  type.  In  one  small  way  this 
latter  change  may  occasion  regret.  I  know  several  Scottish 
Gaels  who  used  to  take  delight  in  deciphering  the  Irish 
articles  when  they  appeared  in  Roman  type,  and  who 
lament  that  the  new  dress  disguises  the  affinity  between 
Irish  and  their  native  tongue. 

It  is  certainly  a  good  plan  on  the  part  of  the  Oireachtas 
Committee  to  authorise  Coiste  na  mBan  to  organise  an 
'  Irish  Historical  Character  Dance  for  Children  '  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Irish  national  festival.  The  dance,  which 
was  held  in  the  Rotunda,  Dublin,  on  August  2,  constitutes, 
I  believe,  the  first  attempt  to  associate  children  with  the 
Oireachtas  ;  one  hopes  it  may  institute  in  hundreds  of 
cases  a  life-long  affection  for  the  festival.  An  Claidheamh 
Soluis,  by  the  way,  points  out  that  '  the  Oireachtas  causes  a 
big  drain  on  the  Language  Fund.'  It  would  be  an  excellent 
thing  if  the  departure  to  be  initiated  by  Coiste  na  mBan 
should  point  the  way  towards  making  the  festival  a  help 
instead  of  a  hindrance  even  in  matters  financial. 

This  year's  summer  course  of  the  School  of  Irish  Learning 
is  of  more  than  usual  interest.  Mr.  Osborn  J.  Bergin  is 
lecturing  on  '  Old  Irish,'  '  Middle  Irish  Manuscripts,'  and 

*  Old  Irish  Texts '  ;  Professor  Kuno  Meyer  on  '  Old  and 
Middle  Irish  Poetry  '  ;  and  Mr.  J.  Glyn  Davies  on  '  Elemen- 
tary Welsh  Grammar,'   with  a  continuation  course,  and 

*  Mediaeval  Welsh  Texts.'  The  session  began  on  July  1st 
at  33  Dawson  Street,  Dublin.  Practically  all  the  lectures 
are  given  in  the  evening,  and  the  fees  are  almost  ridiculously 
small. 

A  long  overdue  measure  of  justice  is  done  to  the  memory 
of  a  gifted  Gaelic  scholar  by  an  article  which  appears  in 
The  Celtic  Monthly  for  May.     It  is  from  the  pen  of  Mr. 


PAN  CELTIC  NOTES  87 

J.  P.  Anderson,  and  deals  with  one  of  his  predecessors  in 
the  office  of  University  Librarian  of  Aberdeen — Ewen 
Maclachlan.  Many  errors  in  and  omissions  from  the 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography  and  the  catalogue  of  the 
British  Museum  are  corrected,  and  much  interesting  in- 
formation is  given  regarding  Maclachlan' s  work  as  bard, 
translator,  and  lexicographer.  The  same  magazine  con- 
tains a  full-page  photograph  of  a  well-known  Scottish 
personality,  Mr.  Theodore  Napier,  with  a  detailed  descrip- 
tion of  the  Highland  costume  he  wears  so  consistently. 

Manxmen  everywhere  should  accord  a  hearty  welcome 
to  Part  II.  of  Mr.  W.  H.  Gill's  Songs  of  my  Fatherland — an 
unpretentious  but  extremely  interesting  collection  of  Manx 
music,  ancient  and  modern.  Three  of  the  four  songs  which 
make  up  this  part  have  Manx  as  well  as  English  words.  I 
venture  to  quote  the  last  verse  of  '  Ny  Lomarcan  '  (*  Alone  '), 
since  the  words,  apart  from  their  pathetic  beauty,  cannot 
fail  to  interest  speakers  of  Scots  and  Irish  Gaelic : — 

'  Ven  aeg,  ere  hon  t'ou  nish  dobberan, 

Ec  oirr  yn  cheayn  gorm  ec  shee  "? ' 
'  Sole  son  dy  door  my  ghraih  deyr  e  vaase ; 
Soie  son  dy  door  my  ghraih  deyr  e  vasse ; 

Blaik  Ihiu  mish  ve  aitt  ? '  dooyrt  ee. 

The  Songs  may  be  had  from  the  Manx  Sun  stationery 
store,  Douglas. 

On  the  whole,  the  Welsh  National  Eisteddfod  for  this 
year,  held  in  London  on  June  15-18,  must  be  considered 
successful.  When,  in  1907,  the  Committee  sent  a  deputa- 
tion to  Swansea  with  a  petition  that  the  Welsh  festival 
might  visit  the  English  Metropolis,  a  promise  was  given 
that  the  Eisteddfod  should  be  thoroughly  Cymric  in  char- 
acter. That  promise  was  faithfully  redeemed.  Competi- 
tors and  visitors  who  came  up  from  Wales  expecting  to 
find  the  gatherings  Anglicised  out  of  all  recognition  were 
pleasantly  surprised.  Welsh  was  the  language  employed 
whenever  possible — even  the  militant  suffragists  who 
invaded  the  Albert  Hall  found  themselves  using  it  before 


88  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

the  festival  was  over — and  a  special  tribute  should  be  paid 
to  the  magnificent  loyalty  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George  in  this 
matter.  The  example  of  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
was  followed  by  all  the  Welsh  Members  of  Parliament 
present,  and  the  result  is  that  many  hundreds  of  young 
people  who  came  up  from  the  Principality  to  take  part  in 
the  musical  competitions  have  gone  back  with  renewed 
faith  in  the  future  of  their  nation  and  her  language. 

In  one  respect  it  was  certainly  well  worth  while  for  the 
Eisteddfod  to  revisit  London  after  its  twenty-two  years' 
absence ;  the  London  Committee  produced  its  list  of 
subjects,  and  its  two-hundred  page  programme,  in  a  style 
which  deserves  imitation  at  all  future  Eisteddfodau.  Too 
often  the  local  committees,  in  their  natural  desire  to  make 
the  festivals  '  pay  their  way,'  crowd  these  publications  with 
advertisements  in  the  most  incongruous  and  unsightly 
fashion.  A  terrible  example  is  furnished  by  the  list  of 
subjects  for  competition  at  next  year's  National  Eisteddfod 
in  Colwyn  Bay.  Though  in  choice  of  subjects  the  list  is  in 
many  respects  one  of  the  best  that  has  been  seen  for  some 
years,  it  is,  in  the  matter  of  ugly  and  annoying  advertise- 
ments, one  of  the  very  worst.  One  sincerely  hopes  that 
London's  example  will  shame  the  Committee  into  avoiding 
this  sin  when  the  programme  of  the  daily  sessions  comes 
to  be  produced. 

Nothing  is  more  exasperating  to  the  patriotic  Welshman 
than  the  supercilious  smile  with  which  the  average  English- 
man receives  any  mention  of  the  wealth  of  Welsh  literature. 
Walled  in  by  his  ignorance  of  the  language,  and  secure  in  his 
conviction  that  it  contains  little  but  a  few  poems  of  doubtful 
age  and  still  more  doubtful  excellence,  the  Englishman 
remains  persuaded,  whatever  one  may  say,  that  on  this 
point  the  Welsh  are  the  victims  of  a  self-deception  that  is 
harmless  to  them  and  a  little  amusing  to  so  superior  a 
person  as  himself.  At  long  last  it  has  been  made  possible 
to  put  into  the  hands  of  such  people  a  little  book  which 
constitutes  an  unanswerable  argument.     It  is  published  by 


PAN  CELTIC  NOTES  89 

[essrs.  Jarvis  &  Foster  of  Bangor,  at  the  low  price  of  half 
a  crown,  and  is  called  A  Manual  of  Welsh  Literature.  In  it 
the  Rev.  J.  C.  Morrice  deals  with  the  lives  and  works  of  some 
two  hundred  writers*  of  Welsh  prose  and  poetry  from  the 
sixth  century  to  the  end  of  the  eighteenth.  Despite  the 
slipshod — no  doubt  hurried — English  in  which  it  is  written, 
the  Manual  is  a  most  valuable  piece  of  work.  Its  illustrative 
extracts  are  enough  to  lure  the  least  poetical  Welshman 
to  the  study  of  the  bards,  and  to  impress  any  thoughtful 
stranger  with  the  remarkable  continuity  of  Welsh  literature 
through  centuries  of  conquest,  oppression,  and  neglect. 

From  the  same  publisher  as  the  work  just  mentioned 
comes  a  delightful  volume  entitled  Deffynniad  Ffydd 
Eglwys  Loegr.  It  is  a  facsimile  reproduction  of  the  original 
black-letter  edition  (1595)  of  Bishop  Jewel's  Apologia 
Ecdesice  Anglicanoe,  as  translated  into  Welsh  by  Maurice 
Kyffin.  The  book  is  number  five  in  the  series  of  reprints 
of  Welsh  classics  issued  by  the  Guild  of  Graduates  of  the 
University  of  Wales,  which  has  been  fortunate  enough  to 
secure  in  Mr.  W.  Prichard  Williams  an  editor  of  quite 
unusual  gifts.  In  addition  to  annotating  the  text  and  add- 
ing a  collection  of  the  author's  poetry,  Mr.  Prichard  has 
succeeded,  at  immense  pains,  in  removing  the  mystery 
which  has  hitherto  surrounded  the  personality  of  Maurice 
Kyffin.  He  proves  to  have  been  one  of  those  dashing  Eliza- 
bethan Welshmen  of  the  type  Shakespeare  has  drawn  for  us 
— quick  of  wit  and  of  temper,  ready  with  sword  and  with 
pen,  learned  in  the  classics,  in  the  Continental  languages, 
and  in  English,  but  all  the  while  cherishing  Welsh  and  the 
ability  to  speak  and  write  it.  Apart  altogether  from  the 
value  of  the  Deffynniad  as  a  masterpiece  of  Welsh  prose, 
the  book  is  well  worth  getting  for  the  sake  of  the  introduc- 
tion in  which  Mr.  Prichard  Williams  enables  one  to  make 
the  acquaintance  of  so  charming  a  character. 

The  Welsh  Folk-song  Society  is  to  be  congratulated  on 
the  excellence  of  the  first  number  of  its  Journal.  It  is 
plain  that  the  activities  of  the  Society  have  come  along 


90  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

*  in  the  nick  of  time  '  to  rescue  many  a  gem  that  must  other- 
wise have  vanished,  with  a  passing  generation,  into  the 
darkness  of  things  forgot.  The  Journal  is  clearly  destined 
to  be  a  delight  to  lovers  of  music  and  of  Welsh  lore.  In  the 
same  connection,  it  should  be  mentioned  that  Messrs.  Boosey 
&  Co.  have  brought  out  the  second  part  of  their  Welsh 
Melodies,  This  admirable  production  differs  from  many 
compilations  professedly  of  the  same  kind,  not  only  by 
reason  of  really  competent  musical  editorship,  but  also 
because  the  songs  have  Welsh  and  English  words  which 
suit  the  times  and  are  genuine  counterparts  one  of  the  other. 
I  believe  the  main  reason  why  Welsh  songs  are  practically 
unknown  to  the  English  musical  public,  while  the  Scots  and 
Irish  ones  are  deservedly  so  popular  with  them,  is  that 
the  tunes  have  generally  been  presented  in  association  with 
utter  rubbish  by  way  of  English  words.  One  remembers, 
for  instance,  a  very  weU-known  volume,  still  regarded  as 
authoritative,  in  which  Ceiriog's  magnificent  poem  '  Yn 
Nyffryn  Clwyd '  is  accompanied  by  some  balderdash  about 
a  ship  which  sets  out  '  manned  by  a  captain  and  his  men  ! ' 
In  the  case  of  Welsh  Melodies  most  of  the  translations  are 
from  the  pen  of  Mr.  A.  P.  Graves,  and  they  include  some 
delightful  specimens  of  his  work.  Wales  has  reason  to 
thank  Mr.  Graves  for  lending  his  genius  to  the  setting  forth 
of  her  songs  so  that  English-reading  musicians  may  have 
opportunity  to  appreciate  them  at  their  full  worth. 

Learned  and  painstaking  though  it  be,  Professor  L.  C. 
Stern's  article  on  Dafydd  ab  Gwilym  in  the  latest  number 
of  the  Zeitschrift  fur  Geltische  Philologie  is  not  to  be 
considered  the  final  pronouncement  as  to  the  dates  of  the 
great  Welsh  poet's  birth  and  death.  Mr.  Ivor  Williams, 
M.A.,  of  Bangor  University  College,  contributes  to  the 
May  Traeihodydd  an  article  which  should  not  be  overlooked 
by  any  one  interested  in  these  points  or  in  the  persons 
mentioned  in  Dafydd's  poems.  Mr.  Williams  gives,  too,  a 
clear  and  dispassionate  statement  of  the  evidence  available 
regarding  some  of  the  cywyddau  of  which  the  authenticity 
has  been  disputed. 


PAN  CELTIC  NOTES  91 

M.  Frangois  Vallee,  to  whom  the  Breton  language 
movement  owes  more  than  to  any  other  man  Hving,  has 
done  Brittany  another  great  service  by  the  publication  of 
La  Langue  Bretonne  en  40  Lecons,  This  admirable  handbook 
is  based  on  a  plan  entirely  different  from  that  of  the  same 
author's  Lecons  EUmentaires  de  Grammaire  Bretonne,  and 
it  is  evident  that  M.  Vallee  has  been  studying  the  method  of 
Father  O'Growney.  The  mutations  are  not  introduced 
until  some  progress  has  been  made  with  the  vocabulary, 
and  illustrative  sentences  are  numerous.  Indeed,  the 
student  who  knows  something  of  any  one  of  the  Celtic 
languages,  though  nothing  of  Breton,  will  find  himself 
immediately  interested  by  the  passages  in  which  the  Celtic 
is  accompanied  by  an  interlined  French  translation.  The 
book  is  published  at  I'lmprimerie  Saint-Guillaume,  Boule- 
vard Charner,  Saint  Brieuc.  I  should  add  that  it  contains, 
by  way  of  supplement,  a  complete  statement  of  the  accord 
recently  arrived  at  by  representative  Breton  writers  with 
regard  to  the  spelling  of  the  language  and  the  modification 
of  differences  in  the  matter  of  dialect.  This  is  a  subject 
of  prime  importance  to  the  future  of  Breton,  and  one  is 
glad  to  notice  that  the  number  of  writers  who  have  signified 
their  adhesion  to  the  accord  is  steadily  increasing. 

Another  interesting  item  of  Breton  bibliography  is  the 
announcement  that  a  second  volume  of  Barzaz  Taldir  may 
be  expected  before  long.  M.  Jaffrennou  is  certainly  the 
most  gifted  of  living  Breton  poets.  When  one  glances  again 
through  the  pages  of  the  splendid  volume  he  issued  in  1903, 
indeed,  one  is  tempted  to  write  that  no  living  Celtic  poet 
surpasses  him  in  genius.  Should  his  second  volume  manifest 
any  substantial  advance  on  the  best  work  in  the  first,  it  will 
no  longer  be  possible  to  deny  Taldir  even  that  high  tribute. 

L' Union  Regionaliste  Bretonne  holds  its  eleventh  annual 
congress  from  September  9  to  15,  at  Pontrieux.  The  pro- 
gramme does  not  differ  materially  from  those  of  the  con- 
gresses of  recent  years,  excepting  that  it  includes  the  erection 
of  a  memorial  to  Le  Brigand,  friend  of  La  Tour  d'Auvergne. 
Advantage  will  be  taken  of  the  local  fair  to  endeavour  to 


92  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

awaken  the  sentiment  of  Breton  nationality  among  the 
peasantry  of  the  surrounding  district,  whom  it  would  other- 
wise be  difficult  to  reach. 

An  interesting  discussion  has  been  going  on  in  the 
Franco -Breton  press  as  to  the  game  called  la  soule  (in 
Breton,  ar  veil)  and  the  possibility  of  its  revival  as  a  national 
pastime.  It  must  have  been  a  fairly  vigorous  form  of  re- 
creation, to  judge  from  the  description  given  by  a  corre- 
spondent of  Le  Pays  Breton,  who  remembers  it  being  played 
in  the  college  of  Redon  about  1870.  Says  he  :  *  Une  grosse 
boule  de  cuir  etait  depose  en  milieu  de  la  cour  de  recreation, 
les  joueurs,  di vises  en  deux  camps,  et  armes  de  batons 
recourbes,  s'effor9aient  d'attirer  la  soule,  chacun  vers  le 
mur  oppose,  et  quand  celle-ci  avait  touche  le  mur  la  partie 
etait  gagn6e.  Ce  jeu  avait  tou jours  un  tres  grand  succes, 
et  on  s'y  livrait  avec  une  ardeur  qui  n' etait  pas  toujours 
sans  laisser  des  traces,  bien  qu'il  n'y  ait  jamais  eu  a  ma 
connaissance  de  suites  facheuses.'  From  this  it  seems  that 
la  soule  was  closely  allied  to  the  hurling  of  Ireland  and 
Cornwall.  Another  writer,  however  (Monsieur  Prosper 
Hemon,  of  Saint  Brieuc),  makes  it  appear  that  la  soule 
resembled  rather  the  fierce  inter-parochial  games  of  '  foot- 
ball '  described  in  Owen's  Pembrokeshire.  According  to 
him,  the  ball  was  often  of  wood,  the  contestants  represented 
parishes  or  parts  of  parishes,  and  '  le  jeu  .  .  .  est  tres  ancien, 
et  offre  toute  la  brutalite  des  temps  primitifs  et  barbares.' 

I  should  be  glad  to  believe  that  there  is  justification 
for  the  hopeful  view  taken  by  Ar  Barz  Tangwall  (M. 
P.  Diverres)  with  regard  to  the  Celtic  situation  in  Cornwall. 
'  A  rheure  actuelle,'  he  says  in  a  Franco-Breton  weekly, 
*  il  existe  un  certain  nombre  de  Cornouailles  qui  ont  appris 
le  Cornique  et  qui  le  parlent.  .  .  .  Ces  ardents  patriotes, 
estiment  que  tout  n'est  pas  encore  perdu,  luttent  du  mieux 
qu'ils  peuvent  pour  la  renaissance  de  leur  idiome  national. 
Esperons  que  bientot  la  reussite  viendra  couronner  leurs 
efforts,  car,  maintenant  encore,  1' anglais  vulgaire  parle 
dans  le  Cornwall  contient  une  foule  de  mots  et  d' expressions 
comiques,  et  leur  entreprise  n'est  pas  chimerique.' 


BOOK  EEVIEWS  93 

All  who  have  had  experience  of  the  unfair  treatment 
sometimes  meted  to  Celtic-speaking  witnesses  by  monoglot 
English  magistrates  will  be  interested  in  the  conduct  of  an 
important  trial  at  Carpentras  during  May.  The  majority 
of  the  witnesses  appealed  to  the  President  of  the  Court  for 
permission  to  give  evidence  in  Provengal,  saying  that  it 
was  the  only  language  of  which  they  had  complete  command. 
Parisian  advocates  engaged  in  the  case  objected  on  the 
ground  that  they  did  not  understand  Provengal;  but  the 
President  replied  that  they  could  avail  themselves  of  the 
services  of  an  interpreter,  and  that,  in  the  interests  of  exact 
truth,  the  request  of  the  witnesses  would  be  granted. 

S.  R.  J. 

BOOK  REVIEWS 

Die  Kultur  der  Gegenwart,  ed.  Paul  Hinneberg.     Tell  i.,  Abteilung  XL,  i. 
*  Die  romanischen  Litteraturen  und  Sprachen  mit  Einschluss  des  Keltischen.' 

Almost  one  third  of  this  stately  volume  is  occupied  by  a  history  of 
Celtic  literature.  It  may  be  said  without  hesitation,  that  this  is  the  best 
scientific  and  at  the  same  time  popular  account  we  possess  of  Celtic  literature. 
Three  eminent  German  scholars  have  contributed  to  the  task  :  Professor 
Zimmer  and  Dr.  Stern  of  Berlin  and  Professor  Kuno  Meyer  of  Liverpool. 

Professor  Zimmer  deals  with  the  Celtic  languages  and  literatures  in 
general,  and  gives  a  very  good  history  of  the  language  movements.  In 
the  introduction  he  speaks  of  the  great  influence  the  Celts  have  ever 
exercised  upon  the  peoples  of  Europe,  how  in  the  first  centuries  before  Christ 
they  transmitted  to  the  Teutonic  race  the  Mediterranean  culture,  how 
during  the  middle  ages  they  were  the  only  nation  which  preserved  the 
treasures  of  classical  civilisation  and  handed  them  over  to  the  Teutonic 
and  Romance  nations,  and  how  later  on  the  Arthurian  legend  came  to  the 
poets  of  these  nations  like  a  mighty  new  revelation  which  filled  their 
brains  and  hearts  with  the  burning  inspiration  of  the  Celtic  genius,  an 
inspiration  that  has  not  ceased  even  in  our  day. 

Speaking  of  the  history  of  the  Celtic  languages,  the  learned  Professor 
says  that  according  to  his  opinion  the  first  Celts  did  not  reach  the  British 
Islands  before  the  fifth  century  B.C.  He  does  not  tell  us  anything  about 
the  detailed  history  of  the  Celtic  invasions,  but  I  understand  he  is  work- 
ing at  these  problems. 

The  most  interesting  chapters  are  those  concerning  the  language  move- 
ments, and  as  the  book  may  not  be  accessible  to  every  reader  of  this 
Beview,  I  propose  to  give  some  striking  passages  in  full.  He  shows  that  in 
1801,  when  the   severe   penal   laws,  that  had  been   oppressing  the  Irish 


94  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

language  for  more  than  three  hundred  years,  were  removed,  Irish-Gaelic 
was  yet  the  language  of  the  people,  that  of  the  5,200,000  inhabitants, 
about  4,000,000  spoke  their  native  tongue.  From  this  it  would  seem  that 
the  most  dangerous  enemies  of  the  Irish  language  are  not  to  be  found 
in  England,  but  amongst  the  Irish  themselves.  For  what  continual 
attacks  for  so  many  centuries  could  not  effect,  happened  in  less  than 
one  century :  the  Irish  people  themselves  abandoned  their  native  tongue. 
The  deadly  blow  to  the  Irish  language  was  given  by  the  Catholic  Church. 
In  vain  thousands  and  thousands  of  Irishmen  had  shed  their  blood  for 
their  religion  and  offered  their  lives  upon  the  altars  of  the  Catholic  faith. 
The  truest  and  most  faithful  children  of  the  Holy  Father  were  robbed  of 
their  most  sacred  possession  through  the  ignorance  of  their  priests,  who 
thought  themselves  too  good  to  speak  the  language  of  their  people. 
When  in  1778  the  Catholic  Church  was  freed  from  its  bonds  and  the 
English  government  offered  a  sum  for  founding  a  clerical  college,  it  seemed 
but  natural  that  this  new  free  institution— subject  to  only  the  Catholic 
Church — would  have  been  organised  according  to  the  real  wants  of  the 
Catholic  Irish  population,  nine-tenths  of  which  understood  Irish  and  more 
than  half  of  which  could  not  speak  English.  But  nothing  of  this  kind 
was  done,  Maynooth  was  organised  as  a  Catholic  missionary  station  for 
the  English-speaking  population,  like  any  English  college.  Not  only  that : 
in  the  very  time  when  the  clergy  took  up  the  teaching  in  the  Catholic 
schools,  English  was  made  the  language  of  public  instruction ;  there  was 
plenty  of  Catholic  teaching,  but  Irish  was  not  even  taught  as  a  modern 
foreign  language,  like  French,  but  was  totally  ignored  up  to  the  end  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  Laymen  and  clergymen,  instead  of  regenerating 
the  native  literature,  turned  to  the  English  language,  where  they  could 
enjoy  themselves  without  any  great  exertion.  The  people,  when  they 
saw  how  their  college-bred  brethren  began  to  show  contempt  for  their 
native  tongue,  grew  ashamed  of  their  own  mother-tongue,  and  this  shame, 
combined  with  the  ever-increasing  emigration  from  purely  Irish  districts, 
resulted  in  the  old  beautiful  Irish  language  melting  away  like  snow  in 
the  heat  of  the  summer  sun.  At  last  came  the  revival,  and  heroic  efforts 
were  made  to  save  the  sacred  legacy  of  a  great  past.  Professor  Zimmer 
concludes  his  spirited  remarks  on  the  Irish  movement  by  saying  that  all 
efforts  to  preserve  the  Irish  language  will  be  in  vain  if  the  peasantry 
cannot  be  induced  to  throw  off  the  stupid  shame  of  their  own  mother- 
tongue,  and  if  a  stop  is  not  put  to  the  ever-increasing  flood  of  emigration 
from  the  Irish-speaking  districts.  We  earnestly  hope  that  the  heroic 
efforts  of  the  Gaelic  League  will  turn  out  a  brilliant  success,  and  that  once 
more  a  shining  radiance  may  emanate  from  the  West  and  overflood  the 
whole  of  Europe  with  the  burning  light  of  Celtic  genius !  In  Scotland, 
though  the  reasons  were  different,  the  result  is  the  same.  But 
though  to-day  the  number  of  Gaelic  speakers  is  much  smaller  than 
in  Ireland,  the  position  of  the  Gaelic  language  ought  to  be  much  stronger, 
because  the  Protestant  religion  with  its  preaching,  Bible,  sacred  songs  and 


BOOK  REVIEWS  95 

I  rich  religious  literature,  is  a  wonderful  support  for  the  national 
language.  On  the  other  hand,  neither  the  Church  nor  An  Comunn 
Gaidhealach  can  be  regarded  as  doing  their  full  duty  by  the  Gaelic 
language.  Zimmer  thinks^  that  the  old  language  of  the  Isle  of  Man  is 
hopelessly  lost,  the  chief  reasons  being  that  the  Gaelic  inhabitants  have 
been  emigrating  since  1823,  while  the  island  is  becoming  more  and  more 
a  holiday  resort  for  English  speakers,  especially  for  the  inhabitants  of 
Manchester  and  Liverpool.  In  1770  the  number  of  Manx  speakers  was 
yet  so  considerable  that  Bishop  Dr.  Hildesley  thought  it  necessary  to 
translate  the  whole  Bible  into  Manx  and  to  print  it. 

The  position  of  the  Welsh  language  is  firmly  established,  but  Professor 
Zimmer  utters  a  serious  warning  to  all  patriotic  Welshmen,  and  I  should 
wish  that  no  Gymro  would  close  his  ear  to  the  warning  voice  of  the  great 
Celtic  scholar.  For  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  brought  to  Wales 
institutions  that  must  become  in  time  as  fatal  to  the  Welsh  nationality 
as  Maynooth  and  the  Catholic  education  have  been  for  Ireland.  Regular 
intermediate  schools  and  even  Universities  have  been  established,  but  this 
whole  '  national '  education  is  founded  on  '  English '  as  the  national  language, 
the  lectures  in  the  Universities  and  intermediate  schools  are  delivered  in 
English,  the  Welsh  language  is  treated  as  a  foreign  language  and  is  not 
even  compulsory.  In  the  elementary  schools  Welsh  can  be  taught  only 
if  the  local  government  allow  or  wish  it.  Though  there  are  many  things 
strengthening  the  Welsh  language — a  beautiful  book-literature  (since  1801 
more  than  eight  thousand  five  hundred  different  works  have  been  published), 
a  rich  periodical  literature,  not  forgetting  the  Bible,  preaching,  and  Sunday 
school,  the  danger  is  very  great  and  Professor  Zimmer  has  very  serious 
doubts  if  the  position  of  the  Welsh  language  will  be  as  strong  at  the  end 
of  the  twentieth  century  as  it  is  to-day. 

The  Celtic  speakers  in  Brittany  are  threatened  by  serious  dangers,  for 
not  only  the  public  elementary  schools  but  also  the  private  Catholic  schools 
have  been  totally  denationalised,  so  that  one  may  often  meet,  as  in  Ireland 
and  in  Scotland,  the  sad  fact  that  the  children  cannot  converse  with  their 
grandparents  except  only  by  means  of  gestures. 

After  giving  a  short  survey  of  the  history  of  the  Celtic  languages  from 
the  philological  point  of  view.  Professor  Zimmer  proceeds  to  deal  with  the 
characteristics  of  the  Celtic  literatures.  First,  he  speaks  of  literary  classes. 
He  says  the  reason  storytellers  were  so  highly  esteemed  in  Ireland, 
while  in  Wales  they  did  not  compare  with  the  bards,  is  explained  through 
the  different  social  conditions.  Ireland  was  comparatively  quiet  from  the 
fifth  century  to  the  Viking  period,  therefore  lyrical  poets  had  not  much 
material  and  the  people  enjoyed  themselves  by  listening  to  wonderful 
stories.  But  the  Welshmen  had  to  fight  an  everlasting  war  with  Gaelic 
pirates  and  Saxons,  and  every  fresh  battle  gave  impetus  for  fresh  songs, 
and  the  chiefs — eager  for  glory — despised  the  foolish  fairy  tales  and 
delighted  rather  in  the  praise  of  their  own  feats.  That  is  doubtless  one 
reason  for  the  fact,  that  Wales  has  preserved  so  little  of  epic  literature, 


96  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

but  other  reasons  were  at  work  too.  For  the  same  reason  the  greater 
bulk  of  Welsh  literature  is  rhymed  poetry,  while  the  older  Irish  literature 
is  almost  exclusively  written  in  prose,  for  prose  is  the  Celtic  form  for  the 
epic  (foreign  poetical  works  are  rewritten  by  the  Celts  in  the  form  of  prose 
epics).  The  introduction  of  strophical  ballads  is  due,  according  to  Zimmer, 
to  the  influence  of  Norse  poetry,  while  the  Norsemen  learned  from  the 
Celts  the  epic  form,  or  saga,  and  the  origin  of  the  prose  romances  of  the 
middle  ages  has  to  be  ascribed  to  Celtic  (Breton)  influence.  Then  he  points 
out  the  virtues  and  faults  of  Celtic  literature,  the  latter  consisting  chiefly 
in  the  inability  to  produce  really  great  results.  Professor  Zimmer  is  very 
sceptical  as  to  the  Celtic  renaissance,  and  reproaches  the  Celts  with  dream- 
ing too  much,  and  doing  too  little. 

I  wish  with  all  my  heart  that  he  may  be  wrong  therein,  and  that  the 
Celts  may  at  least  show  to  the  world  that  they  are  able  to  fight  for  their 
own  individuality,  and  that  they  will  remember  always,  that  '  the  people 
that  cannot  fight  must  die  ! '  Though  the  new  century  has  already  brought 
much  success  to  the  Celtic  movements,  the  dangers  have  never  been 
greater  than  now,  and  the  times  require  strong  men  and  strong  characters. 

Professor  Meyer  gives  an  excellent  account  of  Irish-Gaelic  literature, 
while  Dr.  Stern  does  the  same  for  the  other  Celtic  literatures.  I  have 
already  occupied  so  much  space  that  I  may  only  say  that  they  have  fulfilled 
their  tasks  in  the  best  possible  way.  Julius  Pokorny. 

The  Zeitschrift  fur  celtische  Fhilologie,  vol.  vii.  part  1,  is  almost  entirely 
devoted  to  a  monograph  by  L.  C.  Stern  upon  'Davydd  ab  Gwilym,  a 
Welsh  Minne-singer.'  Professor  Stern  gives  and  translates  selections  from 
the  great  bard.  Professor  Lindsay  of  St.  Andrews  communicates  {ibid.,  pp. 
266-267)  his  reading  of  'Irish  Glosses  from  Ambr.  F  60,'  a  Milan  MS.  of 
the  Sententiae  Patrum,  to  be  found  in  the  Tliesaurus,  vol.  ii.  p.  234 ;  and 
proposes  the  extension  Augvstin  of  a  contraction  in  the  Codex  of  St.  Paul 
(pp.  290-291).  Professor  Kuno  Meyer  gives  some  Old  Irish  verse  proverbs 
(pp.  268-269),  and  other  contributions.  Professor  Zimmer  replies  to  a 
criticism  of  Whitley  Stokes,  and  discusses  at  length  the  Old  Irish  woi*ds 
allied  to  the  modern  urnaigh,  prayer.  *  Gaelic  Surnames  from  Galloway ' 
are  contributed  by  W.  E.  Crum.  A  letter  of  W.  J.  Thorns  to  Jacob  Grimm 
in  1848  is  published. 

C.  Sarauw  has  an  interesting  article  upon  the  sound-values  of  Irish  /,  w, 
r,  in  the  Zeitschrift  fur  vergleichende  Sprachfarschung,  vol.  xlii.  pp.  53-61. 

In  the  Anzeiger  appended  to  the  Indogermanische  Faischungen,  vol.  xxiii., 
there  is  a  valuable  Celtic  bibliography  for  1905  (pp.  451-456).  Whitley 
Stokes  points  out  three  s-presents  in  Irish  (^ssiniy  I  ask ;  gdssim,  I  cry ; 
Ussaim,  I  beat  violently,  whence  English  Mace'  in  /.  F.,  vol.  xxii.  pp.  335- 
336).  Some  Celtic  words  appear  in  the  index  of  the  same  volume,  pp.  426- 
427.  To  Professor  Thurneysen  is  due  an  obituary  notice  (in  Anzeiger,  vol. 
xxii.  pp.  79-80)  of  John  Strachan,  whose  light  still  burns  among  us. 

A.  0.  A. 


THE    CELTIC    REVIEW 

OCTOBER  15,  1909 

ASPIHATION   IN   SCOTTISH  GAELIC 
Professor  Mackinnon 

In  the  last  number  of  the  Celtic  Review  (p.  4)  reference  was 
made  to  the  phase  of  Consonantal  Mutation  popularly 
known  as  Aspiration,  in  connection  with  Gaelic  Orthography. 
It  is  now  proposed  to  consider  this  feature  of  Celtic  Phon- 
ology more  in  detail,  especially  as  it  manifests  itself  in 
Scottish  Gaelic.  The  term  was  not  perhaps  happily  chosen. 
But  it  is  well  known,  and  in  this  respect  possesses  some 
advantage  over  the  more  accurate  and  descriptive  Vocalic 
Infection  sometimes  substituted  for  it.  The  phonetic 
process  thus  named  is  one  of  many  by  means  of  which  we 
strive  unconsciously  after  ease  of  utterance,  and  is,  like  all 
such,  ultimately  governed  by  the  law  of  least  effort  in  the 
production  of  speech-sounds.  Aspiration  is  thus  met  with 
in  all  languages,  and  singularly  enough,  although  it  has  come 
to  be  regarded  as  a  special  feature  of  the  Celtic  dialects,  the 
original  tongue  seems  to  have  been  more  free  of  it  than  its 
sisters  of  the  Aryan  family.  But  long  before  any  branch  of 
Celtic  was  committed  to  writing  the  people  appear  to  have 
aspirated  their  consonants  freely,  and  to  have  practised  the 
habit  in  their  use  of  a  foreign  language.  Thus  while  Gaelic, 
like  English,  has  been  satisfied  with  simply  aspirating  the 
t  in  the  old  nouns  of  kindred — a^^air,  '  father,'  ma^^air 
'  mother,'  etc.,  the  French  language,  which  phonetically 
may  be  regarded  as  vulgar  Latin  operated  upon  by  Celtic 
vocal  chords,  changed  ^ater  and  wMer,  or  rather  patrem 

VOL.  VI.  G 


98  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

and  matrenif  not  merely  into  paf^er  and  ma^/ter,  but  even 
into  pere  and  mere. 

Among  the  living  Celtic  dialects  Aspiration  is  fully  as 
active  in  the  Brythonic  group  as  in  the  Goidelic.  In  the 
latter  this  mutation  proceeds  on  the  same  lines,  and  is 
subject  to  the  same  general  law,  in  Irish  Gaelic,  Scottish 
Gaelic,  and  Manx.  But  in  the  written  page  Irish  frequently 
preserves  vocalised  consonants  which  Scottish  Gaelic  drops 
— the  sufl&x  -amhaily  e.g.  written  in  full  in  Irish,  is  with  us 
reduced  to  -ail.  Again  Manx,  which  is  written  more 
phonetically  than  Scottish  Gaelic,  suppresses  a  still  greater 
number  of  silent  consonants  which  we  preserve — our 
pathadh,  'thirst,'  is  in  Manx  written  paagh,  our  gobhar,  *goat,' 
is  goayr. 

Within  the  Gaelic-speaking  area  in  Scotland,  there  is 
considerable  divergence,  with  respect  to  the  aspiration  of 
individual  words,  in  the  various  localities,  a  full  account 
of  which  will  be  found  in  the  valuable  papers  on  the 
'Gaelic  Dialects'  contributed  by  the  Rev.  C.  M.  Robertson  to 
vols,  iii.,  iv.,  and  v.  of  the  Celtic  Review.  Speaking  generally, 
it  may  be  said  that  the  northern  districts  show  on  the 
whole  a  greater  tendency  to  aspirate  than  the  southern. 
More  especially  northern  Gaelic  is  readier  to  vocalise 
aspirated  sounds  than  southern  Gaelic.  Thus  while  all 
over  the  area  such  words  as  domhain,  'deep,'  tabhairt, 
*  giving,'  with  many  more,  are  sounded  do'ain,  to'irt, 
hundreds  of  others,  such  as  abhainn,  'river,'  gamhainn, 
'stirk,'  the  class  of  verbal  nouns  ending  in  -adh,  which 
retain  the  aspirated  sounds  of  the  consonants  in  the  south, 
are  vocalised  in  the  north.  On  the  other  hand,  in  a  few 
cases,  notably  in  -ibh  of  the  dative  plural,  the  north  preserves 
the  syllable  in  vocalised  form  -iu,  while  the  south  either 
preserves  it  in  aspirated  form  or  drops  it  altogether.  North, 
ris  na  daoiniu ;  south,  ris  na  daoinibh  (rarely),  ris  na  daoine 
'  to  the  men.' 

All  the  consonants  have  their  aspirated  sounds,  although 
in  Scotland  it  is  not  the  practice  to  mark  in  writing  the 


ASPIRATION  IN  SCOTTISH  GAELIC  99 

aspiration  of  the  liquids  I,  n,  r.  The  aspirated  sound  may 
occupy  the  initial,  medial,  or  final  position  in  the  word — 
one  or  all.  We  have  thus  Initial,  Medial,  and  Final  Aspira- 
tion to  consider,  and  for  convenience  we  take  them  in  the 
following  order  :  Medial,  Final,  Initial. 

I.  Medial  Aspiration. — The  Rule  is  that  a  single  con- 
sonant (or  a  consonant  followed  by  a  liquid)  stand- 
ing between  two  vowels  aspirates.  We  say  that  the 
t  in  the  old  words  athair,  mdihair,  aspirates  because  it  is 
a  single  consonant  sound,  and  is  and  always  has  been 
flanked  by  vowels.  So  of  the  numeral  ceithir,  '  four.'  The 
rule  holds  with  respect  to  words  borrowed  into  the  language 
as  well  as  to  native  words.  Gaelic  has  borrowed  from  Latin 
from  very  early  times,  especially  ecclesiastical  and  military 
terms.  Take  the  following.  We  do  not  well  know  why  the 
early  Gaelic  missionaries  did  not  accept  the  native  word  cin, 
now  cionta,  to  express  the  theological  conception  conveyed 
by  peccatum.  Anyhow  they  borrowed  this  word.  The 
Gael  also  borrowed  sagitta  from  the  same  language,  whether 
or  not  they  practised  archery  before  they  came  into  contact 
with  Roman  civilisation.  In  the  case  of  loan-words  the 
practice  was  to  drop  the  syllable  of  flexion,  and  borrow  only 
the  stem.  But  our  Gaelic  scholars  were  careful  to  show 
in  their  orthography  that  they  copied  the  sound  of  the 
borrowed  stem  as  accurately  as  the  phonesis  of  the  two 
languages  permitted.  So  they  wrote  these  words  at  first 
peccat,  saiget ;  later  peccad,  saiged  ;  and  now  when  we  mark 
the  aspiration  of  d  and  g,  peacadh,  saighead.  The  vowel- 
flanked  single  consonants  are  aspirated ;  the  double  con- 
sonants are  not.  As  a  rule  in  these  borrowed  words,  whether 
aspirated  or  not,  the  stronger  sound  gives  way  in  process  of 
time  to  a  weaker,  as  here  a  cc  to  a  c  and  a  tt  to  even  a  d. 
But  this  is  not  always  the  case.  8acerd-os  has  become 
sagart  in  Gaelic.  The  tenuis  c  has  become  median  g  accord- 
ing to  rule,  but  median  d  has  become  tenuis  t,  a  case  of  what 
is  technically  termed  Provection,  probably  through  contact 
with  the  r  sound. 


100  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

The  next  stage  in  phonetic  decay  is  to  vocaUse  the 
aspirated  sound.  We  have  had  examples  in  changing  pater 
to  pere  in  France,  and  abhainn  to  auinn  in  the  North  High- 
lands. Lowland  Scots  is  particularly  liable  to  vocalise 
consonantal  sounds,  the  Glasgow  feat  of  converting  water 
to  wa'er  being  well  known.  Comparison  with  kindred 
tongues  shows  that  the  Celt  practised  vocalisation  early : 
sua(i)ny  '  sleep,'  has  its  cognate  in  somnus,  itself  a  decadent 
form  of  sompnus  ;  nua(dh)  in  novus ;  and  naoi  in  novem. 

In  the  modern  language  we  find  many  unaspirated  single 
consonants  flanked  by  vowels.  The  greater  number  of  these 
can  be  easily  explained,  and  we  could  probably  explain  them 
all  if  we  knew  exactly  how  they  came  by  their  present  form. 
Thus  in  such  examples  as  pofeull,  o&air,  the  h  represents  a  p — 
po^ul-us,  oper-a.  Here,  instead  of  aspirating  the  vowel- 
flanked  p,  another  mode  of  facilitating  ease  of  utterance 
was  adopted,  that  named  by  Zeuss  destitutio  tenuium,  the 
reducing  of  a  strong  sound  to  a  weaker  one.  But  the  greater 
number  of  seeming  exceptions  to  the  rule  is  explained  by  the 
fact  that  the  single  consonant  in  the  language  of  to-day 
represents  a  double  consonant,  as  in  the  case  of  peacadh  for 
peccat-um,  or  two  consonants  one  of  which  has  disappeared 
in  obedience  to  one  or  other  of  our  phonetic  laws.  In  such 
words  as  flaitheanas,  '  lordship,'  '  heaven,'  breitheanas, 
'  judgment,'  formed  from  flaithem  and  brithem,  the  m  which 
preceded  the  n  aspirated  first  and  subsequently  vocalised 
and  disappeared — flaithemnas,  flaitheamhnas,  flaitheanas. 
So  the  personal  name  Mdnus  through  Maghnus  derives 
from  Magnus,  The  Gaels  wrote  Saxon  originally  Sacsan  ; 
thereafter  Sa^hsan,  Saghsunn ;  and  finally  Sasunn, 

11.  Final  Aspiration, — The  aspiration  or  non-aspiration 
of  final  consonants  in  Gaelic  is  explained  in  the  same  way  as 
that  of  medial  consonants.  Here  the  loan-words  are  of 
special  significance.  We  know  the  exact  form  of  the  borrowed 
word,  and  approximately  the  date  of  the  loan.  To  take  our 
former  examples :  the  final  dh  of  peacadh  is  aspirated 
because  the  t  of  pecca^-um  was  a  single  consonant  vowel- 


m 


ASPIEATION  IN  SCOTTISH  GAELIC  101 


anked,  and  the  d  of  saighead  was  not  aspirated  because  it 
represents  a  double  consonant  in  the  lending  language — 
sagi^^a.  The  Latin  word  cleric-its  was  borrowed  into  English 
as  well  as  into  Gaelic.  But  the  English  word  became 
simply  cleric  in  the  singular,  with  clerics  in  the  plural.  The 
Gael  subjected  the  loan  to  the  phonetics  as  well  as  to  the 
grammatical  forms  of  his  own  language.  The  final  c  of 
clericus  was  in  the  singular  followed  by  a  broad  vowel,  and 
in  the  loan  not  only  must  the  c  be  aspirated  but  the  ch  must 
retain  its  broad  sound.  So  we  write  cleireach.  The  plural 
was,  however,  cleric-i,  a  small  vowel  following  the  guttural, 
and  Gaelic  follows  suit  and  writes  cleir^ch. 

Our  native  words  have  come  down  to  us  docked  of  their 
final  syllables.  Thus  our  fdidJi,  '  prophet,'  was  in  early 
Celtic  vat-is,  the  t  standing  between  two  vowels — hence  the 
aspiration.  Deich,  '  ten,'  stands  for  dec-en  and  is  aspirated, 
while  cdig  or  ciiig,  '  five,'  stands  for  quinq-e  and  is  un- 
aspirated.  FicJiead,  '  twenty,'  was  originally  vicent-e,  and 
according  to  strict  phonetic  rule  in  Celtic  the  c  aspirates, 
the  nasal  disappears  before  the  dental,  while  the  tenuis  t 
sinks  to  the  median  d.  Thus  the  Final  Aspiration  of  the 
modern  language  is  largely  but  the  Medial  Aspiration  of  the 
earlier  forms  from  which  the  speech  of  to-day  has  developed. 

There  are,  of  course,  large  numbers  of  words  now  ending 
in  a  single  consonant  and  unaspirated.  The  explanation 
offered  regarding  unaspirated  single  consonants  in  medial 
position  applies  to  these.  Many  of  them,  such  as  mac, '  son,' 
'  boy  '  ;  muc, '  pig  '  ;  ceum,  '  step,'  were  in  the  old  language, 
written  with  the  consonant  doubled — mace,  mucc,  ceimm. 
Others  such  as  ceud,  '  first,'  *  hundred,'  have  developed 
from  a  stem  cent — nt  being  now  represented  by  d,  which  does 
not  aspirate.  And  so  of  other  combinations  represented 
now  by  a  single  consonant  sound. 

III.  Initial  Aspiration, — Medial  and  Final  Aspiration 
are  met  with  in  the  sister  languages,  but  Initial  Aspiration,  as 
developed  in  the  Celtic  dialects,  is  unknown  among  the  other 
members  of  the  Aryan  family.     This  linguistic  feature  is 


102  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

accounted  for,  as  Principal  Sir  John  Rhys  puts  it,  '  by  the 
universal  Celtic  custom  of  speaking  in  phrases,'  a  custom 
not  entirely  confined  to  the  Celts,  but  one  which  in  their  case 
has  been  so  pronounced  as  to  permanently  modify  their 
language.  We  sound  two  (or  more)  words  which  are  in  close 
grammatical  relation  as  one  word,  under  one  main  accent, 
and  the  phrase  thus  sounded  is  treated  by  us  phonetically 
as  if  it  were  a  single  word.  All  the  phonetic  processes  which 
operate  in  an  individual  word  operate  in  this  phrase  or 
Speech-unit,  as  we  sometimes  term  it.  The  Preposition  and 
its  object  form  such  an  unit.  Where  the  object  is  a  Personal 
Pronoun  we  have  by  this  habit  of  speaking  crushed  the  two 
words  into  one,  so  that  we  are  unable  to  disentangle  them. 
Leam,  '  with  me,'  e,g,  is  a  combination  of  the  preposition  le 
and  the  pronoun  mi,  permanently  welded  into  one  in- 
dissoluble word.  The  Prepositional-pronouns  present  a 
linguistic  form  found  in  Agglutinative  Languages,  but 
outside  Celtic,  not  in  the  Indo-European  family. 

Let  us  endeavour  to  apply  this  principle  to  the  consonant 
mutation  which  we  call  Initial  Aspiration.  It  is  manifest 
that  in  the  phrase  or  Speech-unit  if  a  word  originally  ended 
in  a  vowel  sound  (whether  it  does  so  now  or  not),  and  the 
next  word  began  with  a  single  consonant  sound  followed  by 
a  vowel,  such  consonant  became  vowel-flanked,  and  in  an 
individual  word  would  be  aspirated.  The  same  change 
occurs  in  the  unit. 

Vocative  Case.  The  vocative  case  of  nouns  is  preceded 
by  a  breathing  in  Gaelic,  a  short  or  long  a,  or  long  o  as  in 
English  and  Greek.  The  initial  consonant  of  the  noun, 
when  followed  by  a  vowel,  becomes  thus  vowel-flanked  and 
aspirates.  In  mdthair,  *  mother,'  and  hrdthair,  *  brother,' 
we  say  the  t  is  permanently  aspirated  because  it  stands 
between  two  vowels  ;  in  a  mhdthair,  a  bhrdthair,  we  say  the 
m  and  b  are  temporarily  aspirated  for  the  same  reason — 
they  are  temporarily  vowel-flanked. 

Possessive  Pronoun  and  Noun,  The  Possessive  Pronoun 
and  Noun  form  such  an  unit.    The  first  and  second  persons 


t    air 


ASPIRATION  IN  SCOTTISH  GAELIC  103 


singular,  mo  and  do,  with  vocalic  ending,  cause  aspiration — 
mo  mhdthair,  do  phiuthar.  The  third  person  singular  for 
both  Masc.  and  Fern,  is  a.  The  former  causes  aspiration, 
the  latter  does  not-^a  mhathair,  'his  mother,'  but  a  mdthair, 
'  her  mother.'  Not  only  so,  but  when  these  pronouns 
precede  a  noun  of  initial  vowel  sound,  the  Masc.  assimilates 
with  the  adjoining  vowel,  the  Fem.  does  not — (a)  athair, 
'  his  father,'  but  a  h-athair,  '  her  father.'  Neither  Old 
nor  Modern  Gaelic  can  explain  the  anomaly.  But  Sanscrit 
gives  asya,  of  vocalic  final  sound,  as  a  form  for  '  his,'  and 
asyas,  with  consonantal  auslaut  or  out-sound,  for  '  her.' 
The  Gaelic  form  of  the  Fem.  ended  at  one  time,  without 
doubt,  in  a  consonant,  and  the  evidence  is  with  us  to  this 
day.  The  plural  of  the  possessive  pronoun  ends  in  a  nasal, 
although  in  modern  Scottish  Gaelic  the  n  shows  in  the  first 
and  second  persons  only  before  vowels — ar  n-athair,  but 
ar  bo,  our  cow.'  Here  Irish  has  preserved  the  full  form, 
ar  m-ho,  the  n  becoming  m  before  b.  The  same  observation 
holds  good  of  bhur  or  ur,  '  your.' 

Tense-particle  and  Verb.  In  the  old  language  there  were 
three  particles,  do,  no,  ro,  which  with  the  flexions  of  the  verb 
served  to  indicate  Tense.  Of  these  do  alone  survives,  and 
marks  the  Past  Tense.  With  the  verb  it  forms  a  unit  and 
causes  aspiration.  In  present-day  Scottish  Gaelic  do  is 
usually  suppressed  in  the  Affirmative  Mood  before  verbs 
beginning  with  a  consonant  but  the  aspiration  remains :  (do) 
bhuail  mi,  '  I  struck ' ;  as  weU  as  cha  do  bhuail  mi,  '  I  did  not 
strike  '  ;  an  do  bhuail  mi  ?  '  did  I  strike  ?  '  With  verbs  of 
initial  vowel  sound  and  /,  the  o  of  do  assimilates  with  the 
vowel  of  the  verb,  and  in  the  Affirmative  Mood  d  aspirates — 
dh'dl  mi,  '  I  drank  '  ;  dh\fh)dg  mi,  '  I  left.'  In  the  Negative 
and  Interrogative  Moods  the  preceding  nasal,  whether 
expressed  or  not,  checks  the  aspiration  of  the  d — cha(n)  d'ol 
mi,  '  I  did  not  drink  '  ;  an  d'ol  mi  ?   '  did  I  drink  '  ? 

Preposition  and  Object,  The  Preposition  and  Noun 
object  form  a  Speech-unit.  Without  pausing  to  consider 
each  preposition  separately,  it  may  be  said  generally  that 


104  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

the  prepositions  which  end  and  always  ended  in  a  vowel, 
de,  do,  fo,  o  (bho),  mUy  cause  aspiration  of  the  object — 
de  dhaoiney  '  of  men  '  ;  fo  bhdrd,  *  under  a  table  '  ;  mu  chevd, 
'  about  a  hundred ' ;  while  those  that  have  always  had  a 
consonantal  ending  do  not,  an(n),  a(s),  aig,  thar,  etc. — {ann) 
an  coire,  *  in  a  cauldron  '  ;  aig  baile,  '  at  a  city,'  '  at  home  '  ; 
thar  halla,  *  over  a  wall.'  The  facts  would  justify  us  in 
inferring,  even  were  we  unable  to  prove  the  matter  other- 
wise, that  gu,  le,  ri,  which  do  not  cause  aspiration,  must 
have  originally  ended  in  a  consonant,  and  that  gun,  which 
causes  aspiration,  at  one  time  ended  in  a  vowel.  Air  some- 
times aspirates,  sometimes  does  not.  This  preposition  in 
the  modern  language  represents  three  separate  prepositions 
in  the  old  language — ar,  '  before,'  of  vocalic  auslaut,  and 
stiU  causing  aspiration  in  such  phrases  as  ao?i-ar- (not  thar, 
which  does  not  cause  aspiration)-/^icAea€?,  '  twenty-one '  ; 
iar  n-,  '  after,'  with  nasal  auslaut,  the  nasal  still  surviving 
in  such  phrases  as  uidh  air  n-uidh,  '  step  by  step,'  '  gradu- 
aUy  '  ;  iocM  air  n-achd,  '  willy-nilly '  ;  and  for,  '  upon,'  of 
consonantal  ending,  and  not  causing  aspiration. 

Conjunction  and  Verb,  The  conjunction  and  verb  form 
an  unit,  and  these  tell  the  same  tale.  Gu^n,  for  example,  with 
nasal  auslaut,  does  not  permit  aspiration,  gu^n  cual(a)  thu, 
'  that  you  heard,'  while,  ma,  '  if,'  o,  '  since,'  mar,  '  as,' 
aspirate  :  ma  bhu^il  thu,  '  if  you  struck '  ;  o  thdinig  e, 
'  since  he  came,'  etc. 

Article  and  Noun,  The  combination  of  the  Article  and 
Noun  forms  a  Speech-unit,  but  the  initial  aspiration  of  a 
Noim  after  the  Article  presents  anomalies  which  can  only 
be  explained  by  a  knowledge  of  the  forms  of  the  Article 
when  Aspiration  became  a  fixed  rule  in  the  language — that 
is,  in  pre-historic  times. 

The  permanent  form  of  the  Article  is  now  an,  but 
even  the  modem  language  provides  evidence  that  this  part 
of  speech  began  with  s  and  had  a  t  following  the  n,  jdelding 
a  form  sant.  Certain  prepositions  an(n),  gu,  le,  ri  (to  which 
modem  Irish  adds  others,  do  and  de,  for  example)  assume  an  a 


4 


ASPIEATION  IN  SCOTTISH  GAELIC  105 

when  the  Noun-object  takes  the  Article,  anns,  gus,  leis,  ris, 
an  Ugh,''  '  in,  to,  with,  against,  the  house.'  This  s  is  properly 
the  initial  sound  of  the  Article,  but  became  separated 
from  it  and  joined  to  the  preposition.  The  t  found  in 
certain  positions  with  the  Article — an  t-aihair,  '  the  father  '  ; 
an  t'Slat,  '  the  rod  '  ;  leis  an  t-sruth,  '  with  the  current '  ; 
aig  an  t-srein,  '  at  the  bridle  ' — also  belongs  to  it,  but  was 
in  writing  separated  from  it.  Thus  the  speech  of  to-day 
shows  that  the  Gaelic  Article  was  at  one  time  sant. 

If  now  we  proceed  a  step  further  and  examine  the 
declensional  forms  preserved  in  the  Ogham  and  Gaulish 
Inscriptions,  and  confront  these  with  the  parallel  forms  of 
the  other  Aryan  languages,  Latin  and  Greek,  e,g.,  we  are 
irresistibly  led  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Gaelic  Article  was 
declined  in  Proto-celtic  like  an  Adjective  of  the  (so  called) 
First  and  Second  Declensions  in  Latin  and  Greek  {i.e. 
Masculine  and  Neuter  o-stem,  Feminine  a-stem),  and  that 
its  full  form  in  the  Nominative  Singular  was,  approximately, 
sant'  or  send-os  -e  -on.  In  Gaulish,  as  in  Gaelic,  the  terminal 
of  the  Nominative  Neuter,  the  Accusative  Singular,  and 
Genitive  Plural  was  not  m  as  in  Latin,  but  n  as  in  Greek. 
Our  Article  would  thus  decline  like  <^tX-o9  -rj  -ov  rather  than 
like  hon-us  -a  -urn.  With  respect  to  the  forms  that  concern 
us  here,  the  Celtic  Article  would  decline  thus  (cf.  Stokes's 
Celtic  Declension,  pp.  100-2) : 


Singular. 

Dual. 

Plural. 

M.        F. 

N. 

M.            F. 

N. 

M.                F. 

N. 

Norn.  Send-os    -e 

-on 

Send-o     -e(i) 

-0 

Send-oi(i)      -as 

-a 

Gen.       „      -i    -es 

-i 

„    -6       -6 

-0 

„    -on        -on 

-on 

Dat.       „     -u    -e(i) 

-u 

„  -obin  -abin  -obin 

,,  -obos     -abos 

-obos 

Ace.       „    -on    -in 

-on 

M    -0      -e(i) 

-0 

„    -OSS       -ass 

-a 

For  present  purposes  several  of  these  forms  may  be 
passed  over.  The  oldest  form  of  the  Dual  of  the  Article 
that  has  come  to  us  is  uniformly  in.  The  old  Dative 
Plural  form  disappeared  in  the  case  of  the  Article 
very  early.      The    Accusative    Plural    gave   way  to   the 


106  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Nominative  Plural.  The  Neuter  form  (send-on)  must 
have  become  early  crushed  into  (s)an^  for  in  our  oldest 
Gaelic  the  n  of  the  Nominative  operated  as  an  original 
nasal  in  the  Neuter,  while  it  did  not  do  so  in  the 
Masculine  and  Feminine.  The  terminal  n  of  the  Accusa- 
tive Singular  was  operative  as  an  original  nasal  until  com- 
paratively recent  times,  and  the  nasal  of  the  Genitive  Plural 
is  active  to  this  day.  The  Nominative  Plural  Masculine,  of 
vocalic  auslaut  and  causing  aspiration,  was  long  ago 
discarded  in  favour  of  the  feminine  form  innxi,  na,  which 
always  resisted  aspiration. 

In  modern  Scottish  Gaelic  we  have,  in  dealing  with 
Aspiration  caused  by  the  Article,  thus  to  consider  only  the 
Nominative,  Genitive,  and  Dative  Singular,  and  the  Nom- 
inative Plural.  In  the  Nomintive  Singular  Masculine,  the 
Article  originally  ended  in  a  consonant,  send-os,  and  to  this 
day  no  aspiration  follows.  Not  only  so,  but  the  final  n  of 
the  present  form  operates  now  as  though  it  were  an  original 
nasal — we  write  am  fear,  but  usually  say  a  fear,  instead  of 
the  old  in  fer,  '  the  man.'  The  Genitive  and  Dative  Singular 
Masculine  were  of  vocalic  ending,  and  the  Article  still  causes 
aspiration  in  these  cases:  dath  a(n)  choin,  'colour  of  the 
dog ' ;  do  (a)n  chu, '  to  the  dog.'  The  Nominative  and  Dative 
Singular  of  the  Feminine  ended  in  a  vowel,  and  the  following 
noun  always  aspirates  :  a{n)  bhean,  '  the  woman  ^ ;  do  (  a)n 
mhnaoi,  '  to  the  woman.'  The  Genitive  Singular  and 
Nominative  Plural  of  the  Feminine  resist  aspiration : 
fad  na  coise,  '  length  of  the  foot '  ;  na  casan,  '  the  feet.' 
Not  only  so,  but  the  final  vowel  of  the  Article  refuses  to 
assimilate  with  the  initial  vowel  of  a  following  noun : 
Idmh  na  h-oighe,  '  the  hand  of  the  virgin  '  ;  na  h-oighean, 
'  the  virgins.'  So  in  the  modern  Nominative  Plural  Mas- 
culine, which  has  taken  the  Feminine  form  of  the  Article : 
na  fir,'  the  men,'  for  the  old  ind  fhir ;  na  h-aithrichean, '  the 
fathers.' 

The  original  nasal  of  the  Genitive  Plural  of  the  Article 
(Proto-celtic  send-on,  old  Gaelic  innan,  modern  Gaelic  nan)  is 


f 


ASPIRATION  IN  SCOTTISH  GAELIC  107 

perhaps  the  most  interesting  survival  in  the  modern  language 
of  our  declensional  forms.  But  the  explanation  of  non- 
aspiration  by  the  Article  of  the  Genitive  Singular  and 
Nominative  Plural  Feminine  points  to,  if  possible,  a  still 
more  interesting  case,  although  surviving  only  in  its  effects. 
This  declension — the  Feminine  a-stem — yields  in  Greek  in 
the  Genitive  Singular  the  form  -es.  This  consonant-ending 
disappeared  in  Latin  in  pre-classical  times,  and  survives  only 
in  a  stereotyped  phrase — pater-familiar,  the  classical  termina- 
tion being  -ae.  The  form  is  found  in  a  Gaulish  Inscription — 
Vepasones,  which  the  late  Dr.  Stokes  {Celtic  Declension, 
p.  59)  read  as  the  Genitive  Singular  of  Vepasona.  This 
would  yield  in  Proto-celtic  in  the  plural  -as,  while  in  Greek 
the  form  in  the  plural  is  vocalised  -a^.  If  the  echo  of  this 
terminal  consonant  s,  which  disappeared  from  Latin  in 
pre-classical  days,  and,  in  the  plural,  even  from  Greek, 
accounts  for  the  non-aspiration  after  the  Genitive  Singular 
Feminine  and  Nominative  Plural  of  the  Gaelic  Article,  as 
evidently  must  be  the  case,  it  is  a  remarkable  example, 
among  many,  of  the  tenacity  with  which  the  people  pre- 
served in  their  sounds  traces  of  phonetic  decay  in  the 
language. 

Noun  and  Adjective,  Noun  and  Adjective  form  a  Speech- 
unit,  and  what  has  been  said  regarding  the  aspiration  of  the 
noun  following  the  Article  applies  pro  tanto  to  the  Adjective 
following  the  Noun.  But  in  addition  to  this  the  Law  of 
Analogy  operates  here.  In  the  modern  language  the  Adjec- 
tive aspirates  in  the  Nominative  and  Dative  Singular  after 
all  Feminine  Nouns.  By  phonetic  law  it  ought  to  do  so  only 
after  cases  of  original  vocalic  ending.  It  would  appear  that 
the  great  Feminine  -a  declension  was  taken  as  the  type  to 
which  adjectives  in  the  matter  of  aspiration  should  conform. 
In  the  same  way  all  Adjectives  aspirate  in  the  Genitive  Sin- 
gular after  Masculine  Nouns.  It  would  appear  in  this  case 
that  the  other  declensions  followed  the  lead  of  the  Masculine 
-o  declension.  But  they  have  not  done  so  in  the  Nominative 
Plural,  where  the  Masculine  o-stem  alone  causes  the  Adjec- 


108  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

tive  to  aspirate — fir  mhora,  *  great  men,'  but  daoine  mora. 
It  may  be  added  with  respect  to  the  Adjective  that,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  Article,  the  old  Feminine  form  of  the  plm-al 
stands  now  for  the  Masculine  also,  except  when  the  Ad- 
jective is  used  as  a  noun  :  daoine  beaga,  '  little  men,'  but 
na  big,  '  the  little  ones.'  Further  in  the  Dative  Singular 
the  Adjective  aspirates  only  when  the  Article  precedes  the 
Noun  :  le  fear  mor,  *  with  a  big  man,'  but  leis  an  fhear 
mhor,  '  with  the  big  man,'  while  of  recent  years,  especi- 
ally in  Scottish  Gaelic,  there  is  a  growing  habit  of  conform- 
ing, in  the  Genitive  Singular,  the  Feminine  to  the  Mascuhne 
form  of  the  Adjective  :  re  itine  bhig,  '  for  a  little  while,'  in- 
stead of  the  older  and  more  correct  re  uine  bige. 

In  the  class  of  compound  nouns  formed  by  one  sub- 
stantive governing  another  in  the  Genitive  case,  the  second 
noun  aspirates  where  an  adjective  would  aspirate,  and  is 
often  spoken  of  as  a  Noun- Adjective  :  athair-ceile,  '  father- 
in-law  ' ;  but  mathair-cheile,  '  mother-in-law.' 

So  much  for  Initial  Aspiration  in  the  Speech-unit.  A 
few  other  cases  fall  now  to  be  considered. 

Compound  Words,  In  the  ordinary  process  of  word- 
building,  the  second  member  of  a  compound  always  aspirates 
in  Gaelic  :  ro-mhdr,  '  very  great '  ;  neo-ghlan,  '  unclean  '  ; 
mi-chliil,  '  reproach  '  ;  drd-shagart,  '  high  priest '  ;  grad- 
chuimhnich,  '  quickly  remember.'  The  stems  of  the  first 
part  were  frequently  of  vocalic  ending,  and  the  others  con- 
formed by  analogy.  A  few,  an-,  e,g,  of  negative,  privative, 
sometimes  intensive  force,  attach  to  the  main  concept  in 
a  variety  of  ways  :  an-fhann,  '  very  weak '  ;  ain-deoin^ 
'  unwill '  ;  an-a-cainnt,  '  evil  speech.' 

Proper  Names  in  the  Genitive.  Although  the  rule  was 
never  perhaps  very  rigid,  it  was  the  practice  to  aspirate  a 
Masculine  Proper  Name  in  the  Genitive  Case,  and  to  leave 
the  Feminine  unaspirated :  tigh  DhomhnaiU,  '  Donald's 
house,'  but  banais  Mairi,  '  Mary's  wedding.'  The  modern 
tendency  is  to  aspirate  in  both  cases.  The  proper  name 
was  perhaps  looked  upon,  grammatically,  as  more  or  less 


ASPIRATION  IN  SCOTTISH  GAELIC  109 

equivalent  to  the  Common  Noun  with  the  Article,  which 
aspirates  in  the  Genitive  Masculine  but  not  in  the  Feminine. 

Special  Cases.  There  are  several  sporadic  cases  of 
Aspiration,  some*  of  which  are  difficult  to  explain.  The 
common  and  generally  correct  way  is  to  assume  a  word 
of  vocalic  auslaut  as  preceding  the  aspirated  sound.  The 
literary  a  chum  is  for  do  chum,  and  the  coUoquial  forms 
chon,  chun,  thun  may  probably  be  explained  in  the  same 
way.  In  Chaidh  e  a  Dhuneideann,  '  He  went  to  Edinburgh,' 
a  stands  for  do,  and  the  aspiration  is  accounted  for ;  in  a 
m/ich,  a  muigh,  a  represents  the  preposition  an{n)  and  the 
non-aspiration  is  explained.  But  other  cases  met  with  can 
hardly  be  explained  in  the  same  way.  The  preposition  tar 
is  always  aspirated  (thar),  and  le  and  ri  have  always  the 
aspirated  I  and  r  sounds.  In  Scottish  Gaelic  the  Genitive 
Plural  of  Nouns  not  preceded  by  the  Article  is  always 
aspirated. 

It  may  be  said  generally  that  in  isolated  cases  Initial 
Aspiration  is  on  the  increase  in  Scottish  Gaelic.  Thus  the 
Substantive  Verb  ta,  *  is,'  has  become  tha ;  is  fearr,  '  (it)  is 
better,'  is  oftener  than  not  is  fhearr ;  and  co  mar,  'as 
great,'  is  generally  cho  mor,  while  even  cho  mhor  is 
frequently  heard. 

As  stated  in  the  article  on  Orthography  already  re- 
ferred to  (p.  7),  when  sounds  of  strong  assimilative  force 
meet  in  a  Speech-unit,  the  aspiration  which  would  take 
place  under  phonetic  rule  is  checked :  tigh  an  duine,  '  the 
man's  house,'  but  tigh  a(n)  choin,  *  the  dog's  house ' ;  gun 
chii,  *  without  a  dog,'  but  gun  teine,  '  without  a  fire ' ;  mac 
Chailein,  '  Colin' s  son,'  but  Mac  -  Cailein,  the  Gaelic 
patronymic  of  the  Duke  of  Argyll. 


no  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

THE  CONNECTION  OF  THE  ISLE  OF  MAN 

WITH  IRELAND 

A.  W.  Moore 

The  Isle  of  Man  has  a  share  in  the  earliest  legends  which 
take  the  place  of  history  in  Ireland  before  the  Christian 
era,  and  perhaps  for  some  little  time  after  it.  Cuchulainn 
and  Finn,  the  most  celebrated  heroes  of  Irish  story,  appear 
in  Manx  as  well  as  in  Irish  tales.  It  was  in  the  Isle  of 
Man  that  Culann,  the  famous  smith,  manufactured  a 
sword,  a  spear,  and  a  shield  for  Conchobar  MacNessa, 
which  were  of  such  excellence  that  he  was  invited  to  take 
up  his  abode  in  Ireland.  The  triumph  of  Lug,  the  Irish 
sun-god,  was  celebrated  in  the  Isle  of  Man,  as  in  Ireland, 
early  in  August,  and  the  Beltain  (May)  and  Samhain 
(November)  festivals  were  accompanied  by  similar  observ- 
ances in  both  countries.  Keating,^  an  Irish  historian,  in 
relating  the  adventures  of  the  early  colonists  of  Ireland, 
tells  us  that  the  mythic  Firbolg  and  their  allies,  after  their 
defeat  by  the  Tuatha  De  Danann,  went  to  the  island  of 
Rathlin,  and  the  western  isles  of  Scotland,  while,  according 
to  Nennius,^  they  also  took  possession  of  Man.  The 
conquerors  of  the  Firbolg,  the  equally  m3rthic  Tuatha  De 
Danann,  are  brought  closely  into  connection  with  the  Isle 
of  Man  through  the  great  Irish  magician,  Manannan  Mac- 
Lir,  who  is  said  to  have  been  one  of  their  chieftains,  and 
who,  according  to  the  *  Supposed  True  Chronicle  of  the 
Isle  of  Man,'  was  '  the  first  man  that  had  Mann,  or  ever 
was  ruler  of  Mann,  and  the  land  was  named  after  him.'  ^ 
Cormac,  in  his  glossary,  gives  the  following  accoimt  of  him  : 

*  Keating,  History  of  Ireland,  pp.  106-108. 

*  History  of  Britain,  cap.  ii. 

3  Manx  Society  Publications,  vol.  xii.  p.  5.  A  copy  of  this,  which  was  certainly 
not  compiled  earlier  than  the  sixteenth  century,  was  prefixed  to  old  copies  of  the 
Statute  Book. 


CONNECTION  OF  ISLE  OF  MAN  WITH  IRELAND  111 

'  Manannan  MacLir,  a  celebrated  magician  who  was  in 
the  Isle  of  Man.  He  was  the  best  pilot  that  was  in  the 
west  of  Europe.  He  used  to  know  by  studying  the  heavens 
the  period  which  ^would  be  the  fine  weather  and  the  bad 
weather,  and  when  each  of  these  two  times  would  change. 
Inde  Scoti  et  Brittones  eum  deum  vocaverunt  maris^  et  inde 
filium  maris  esse  dixerunt,  i.e.  MacLir,  son  of  sea.  Et  de 
nomine  Manannan  the  Isle  of  Man  dictus  est,''  ^  This 
theory  of  the  Isle  of  Man  being  named  after  Manannan, 
when  so  called,  has  been  shown  to  be  highly  improbable 
by  Professor  Rhys,  who  thinks  that  '  Manannan  gave  his 
original  name,  in  a  form  corresponding  to  Manu  and  its 
congeners,  to  the  island,  making  it  Manavia  Insula  .  .  . 
for  which  we  have  in  Welsh  and  Irish  respectively  Manaw 
and  Manann.  Then  from  these  names  of  the  island  the 
god  derives  his  in  its  attested  forms  of  Manawydan  and 
Manannan,  which  would  seem  to  mark  an  epoch  when  he 
had  become  famous  in  connection  with  the  Isle  of  Man.'  ^ 
This  connection  began  after  the  defeat  of  Manannan  and 
his  Tuatha  De  Danann  by  the  Milesians,  when  he  was  chosen 
by  the  survivors  as  their  leader.  He  and  they  then  took 
refuge  in  the  western  isles  and  Man,  whose  inhabitants 
acknowledged  him  as  their  ruler.  ^  Referring  again  to  the 
'  Supposed  True  Chronicle  of  Man,'  we  find  that '  he  reigned 
many  years  and  was  a  Paynim,  and  kept  by  necromancy 
the  Land  of  Man  under  mists,  and  if  he  dreaded  any  enemies, 
he  would  make  of  one  man  to  seem  an  hundred  by  his  art 
magick,  and  he  never  had  any  farm  of  the  Comons,  but 
each  one  to  bring  a  certain  quantity  of  green  rushes  on 
midsummer  eve.'  *  Manannan  and  his  dynasty,  according 
to  a  story  called  '  The  Exile  of  the  Children  of  Uisneach,' 
ruled  in  Man  at  the  beginning  of  our  present  era,  as  the 

1  Cormac's  Glossary,  the  Stokes  O'Donovan  edition,  p.  114. 

2  Rhys,  Hihhert  Lectures,  1886,  pp.  663,  664. 

3  O'Curry,  Atlantis,  vol.  vii.  226. 

*  Manx  Society  Publications,  vol.  xii.  p.  6.  This  last  sentence  would  seem  to  have 
been  added  as  a  gentle  reminder  to  the  Derby  rulers  of  Man  that  their  faithful  subjects 
had  not  been  accustomed  to  taxation. 


112  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

fourth  of  that  name  is  stated  to  have  assisted  Gaiar  in 
driving  Conchobar,  king  of  Ulster,  from  his  dominions 
early  in  the  first  century.  Tighernach,  who  wrote  his  annals 
about  the  end  of  the  tenth  century,  records  that  a  colony 
of  Cruithnigh,  who  were  driven  out  of  Ulster  by  the 
Milesians,  took  refuge  in  the  Isle  of  Man  in  a.d.  254.  It  is, 
however,  impossible  to  be  siu'e  whether  this  statement  of 
Tighemach's  is  authentic  history,  or  is  founded  on  the 
mythical  story  of  the  expulsion  of  Manannan  by  the 
Milesians  related  above.  The  two  races,  however,  men- 
tioned by  him  are  certainly  human  beings,  not  gods  and 
demons  like  the  Tuatha  De  Dannan  and  Firbolg  of  the 
earlier  legends.  Who  the  Milesians  were  we  know  not, 
but  they  were  probably  Goidels,  and  the  Cruithnigh  or 
Picts  are  historical.  It  must,  therefore,  remain  uncertain 
who  were  the  earliest  inhabitants  of  the  island,  but  we  have 
the  authority  of  Orosius,^  who  wrote  in  416  a.d.,  for  the 
statement  that  in  his  time  the  inhabitants  of  both  Ireland 
and  the  Isle  of  Man  were  Scoti,  or  the  people  who  in  the 
Celtic  languages  would  be  called  Gael  and  Gwyddyl.  It 
would  seem  probable,  however,  judging  from  the  popula- 
tions of  the  adjacent  countries  at  this  period,  that,  though 
Goidels  were  the  ruling  people,  other  earlier  races  were 
represented.  Till  the  fifth  century,  then,  we  have  no 
historical  fact  recorded  in  connection  with  the  Isle  of  Man, 
except  that  it  had  a  population  similar  to  that  which 
inhabited  Ireland.  Nor  are  we  better  supplied  with  histori- 
cal records  during  the  fifth  and  three  following  centuries, 
though  fortunately  we  are  able,  to  a  certain  extent,  to 
supply  their  place  through  the  survival  of  the  names  of 
Irish  ecclesiastics  in  the  designations  of  our  parish  churches, 
which  are  usually  on  old  sites,  and  of  the  ancient  keeills  or 
cells.  These  names  would  lead  us  to  suppose  that  Manx- 
men were  for  the  most  part  Christianised  by  Irish  mission- 
aries ;  and,  indeed,  it  would  have  been  strange  if  the 
proselytising  Irish  monks,  who  wandered  all  over  Europe, 

^  Manx  Society  Publications,  Lib.  i. 


CONNECTION  OF  ISLE  OF  MAN  WITH  IRELAND  113 

had  avoided  an  island  so  near  to  them.  Whether  St. 
Patrick  visited  the  Isle  of  Man  or  not  is  not  certainly 
known,  as  the  ancient  records  are  silent  on  this  point. 
The  Tripartite  Life  of  St,  Patrick  ^  contains  the  following 
interesting  account  of  the  conversion  of  Manxmen  to 
Christianity :  '  St.  Patrick  having  by  means  of  a  miracle 
converted  a  wicked  man  of  Ulster  called  Mace  Cuill  and  his 
men,  the  following  incident  is  related.  "  Then  they  were 
silent  and  said,  '  Truly  this  man  Patrick  is  a  man  of  God.' 
They  all  forthwith  believed,  and  Mace  Cuill  believed,  and 
at  Patrick's  behest  he  went  in  the  sea  in  a  coracle  of  [only] 
one  hide.  .  .  .  Now  Mace  Cuill  went  on  that  day  to  sea, 
with  his  right  hand  toward  Mag  Inis,  till  he  reached  Mann, 
and  found  two  wonderful  men  in  the  island  before  him. 
And  it  is  they  that  preached  God's  word  in  Mann,  and 
through  their  preaching  the  men  of  that  island  were 
baptized.  Conindri  and  Romuil  were  their  names.  Now 
when  these  men  saw  Mace  Cuill  in  his  coracle  they  took 
him  from  the  sea  and  received  him  with  a  welcome  ;  and 
he  learnt  the  divine  rule  with  them,  until  he  took  the 
bishopric  after  them."  This  is  "  Mace  Cuill  from  the  sea," 
the  illustrious  bishop  and  prelate  of  Arduimnen.'  ^ 

With  regard  to  the  earliest  bishops  of  the  Isle  of  Man, 
the  monks  of  Rushen  Abbey — and  monks  are  usually 
credulous  in  such  matters — wrote :  '  We  are  entirely 
ignorant  who  or  what  were  the  bishops  before  Roolwer's 
time  (1076) ;  for  we  neither  find  any  documents  on  the 
subject,  nor  have  we  any  certain  accounts  handed  down 
by  our  elders.'  ^  Undaunted  by  this,  the  later  Manx 
historians  have  compiled  a  list  of  them  as  follows  : 
'Amphibalus  (doubtful),  360;  St.  Patrick,  444;  St. 
German,  447  ;  Conindricus,  Romulus,  etc'  The  two  latter 
are  clearly  the  same  as  those  mentioned  in  the  Tripartite 
Life,     Colgan  gives  these  names  as  Conderium  et  Romailum, 

1  Stokes's  translation,  p.  223. 

2  Colgan,  according  to  Stokes,  has  Ard-Ehnanensis. 
2  Ghronicon  Manice,  Manx  Society,  vol.  xxii.  p.  115 

VOL.  VI.  H 


114  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

which,  Professor  Rhys  conjectures,  should  become  in  Manx 
something  like  Conner  or  Coinnir  and  RoweU  or  Rowill. 
With  reference  to  the  former  of  these  two  names,  it  is, 
perhaps,  significant  that,  according  to  the  Annals  of  Ulster, 
the  shrine  of  DaChonna,  probably  in  Man,  was,  in  798, 
plundered  by  the  Norsemen.  Now  da,  like  mo,  is  a  prefix 
expressing  endearment,  and  removing  it  we  have  Conna, 
so  that  this  shrine  may  have  been  that  of  the  holy  man 
mentioned  in  the  Tripartite  Life,  As  to  Rowell,  it  is  just 
possible  that  he  may  have  left  his  mark  in  the  name  of 
the  mountains  called  Barroole,  the  creek  called  Ghaw 
Roole,  and  the  hill  called  Knockrule.  To  Mace  Cuill 
we  refer  later.  His  name  in  the  form  Coole  is  common 
in  the  Isle  of  Man  at  the  present  day.  With  regard  to 
St.  Patrick,  then,  the  evidence  from  the  Tripartite  Life 
would  tend  to  show  that  he  had  not  visited  the  Isle  of  Man. 
It  was  reserved  for  Jocelin,  a  monk  of  Furness,  writing 
early  in  the  twelfth  century,  who  may,  however,  have  had 
access  to  information  not  attainable  now,  to  tell  us  that 
he  did  so  ;  and  his  narrative  is  expanded  and  embellished 
by  the  Supposed  True  Chronicle  of  Man  and  the  Tradi- 
tionary Ballad^  both  probably  of  not  earlier  date  than  the 
sixteenth  century.  Whether  St.  Patrick  did  or  did  not 
come  to  the  island,  we  have  made  use  of  his  name  freely 
in  our  sacred  sites.  Of  our  seventeen  parish  churches  and 
the  thirty  ancient  keeils,  which  have  retained  their  names, 
the  great  majority  are  dedicated  to  him,  and  to  saints  who 
are  known  to  have  been  either  his  disciples  or  their  succes- 
sors. The  names  of  nine  of  the  parish  churches  are  almost 
certainly  of  purely  Irish  origin,  and,  of  the  remaining  eight, 
four  are  probably  Irish,  and  four  of  comparatively  recent 
dedication.  St.  Patrick's  own  name  was  given  to  two. 
Kirk  Patrick,  and  Kirk  Patrick  of  Jurby.  Jurby  point, 
on  which  the  latter  church  is  situated,  is  said  to  have  once 
been  an  island,  the  innis  Patrick,^  where  the  saint  is  sup- 
posed to  have  landed.     There  is  also  a  church  on  Peel 

*  Some  think,  and  with  more  probability,  that  i/rmu  Patrick  la  Peel  Island. 


CONNECTION  OF  ISLE  OF  MAN  WITH  lEELAND  115 

Island  dedicated  to  him,  which  is  of  very  early  date. 
Maughold,  assuming  him  to  have  been  identical  with  the 
Mace  Cuill  already  mentioned  (p.  113)/  is  said  to  have 
been  one  of  St.  Patrick's  earliest  disciples,  has  given  his 
name  to  a  parish,  a  headland  and  an  islet.  The  Book  of 
Armagh  records  the  marvellous  story  of  his  conversion  by 
St.  Patrick,  and  in  the  other  accounts  of  St.  Patrick's  life 
are  equally  wonderful  details  about  his  episcopate.  These 
are  all  perhaps  surpassed  by  the  circumstantial  statements 
in  the  Chronicon  Mannice  concerning  his  reappearance  in 
the  twelfth  century  to  strike  dead  with  his  staff  a  daring 
pirate  who  had  profaned  his  sanctuary. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  Lonan,  St.  Patrick's  nephew, 
has  given  his  name  to  the  parish  church  of  Lonan,  or,  as  it 
is  now  usually  speUed,  Lonnan,  but  it  is  more  probable 
that  this  name  has  been  derived  from  that  of  Adamnan, 
the  illustrious  abbot  of  lona,  and  the  writer  of  the  Life 
of  St,  Columha.  This  name  is  pronounced  amnan,  or  onan, 
in  Ireland,  and  Keeill  Adamnan  or  onan,  '  Adamnan' s 
Cell,'  easily  becomes  Lonan.  From  Connaghyn,  as  he  is 
called  in  the  '  Traditionary  Ballad,'  comes  the  name  of  the 
parish  church  of  Conaghan,  as  it  was  called  in  the  earliest 
record,  but  since  contracted  into  Conchan.  It  is  difficult 
to  connect  him  with  any  Irish  saint  mentioned  in  the 
martyrologies,  but  he  is  probably  identical  with  St. 
Connigen,  whose  name  occurs  in  the  calendar  of  (Engus. 
The  popular  idea  that  Conchan  is  named  after  St.  Concha 
(Latin  Concessa),  St.  Patrick's  mother,  cannot  be  accepted 
philologically.  The  parish  church  of  Marown  is  dedi- 
cated to  a  saint  called  Maronog  ^  in  the  Irish  calen- 
dars, Marooney  in  the  '  Traditionary  Ballad,'  and  St. 
Runi  ^  in  the  manorial  roll  of  1511.  In  a  Bull  of  Pope 
Gregory  ix.,  dated  1231,*  the  church  of  this  parish  is  called 

1  The  phonetic  change  involved  is  improbable  though  not  impossible.     See  Manx 
Names,  A.  W.  Moore,  p.  136.     Elliot  Stock,  London,  1903. 

2  The  prefix  mo,  '  my,'  and  the  affix  og,  '  young,'  are  expressive  of  endearment  and 
are  frequently  attached  to  the  names  of  Celtic  saints. 

^  Genitive.  ^  See  English  Historical  Review,  January  1890. 


116  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Icyrke  Marona,  In  the  parish  now  called  Arbory  there  are 
two  keeils  dedicated  to  Cairbre  and  Columb  respectively, 
the  former  being  an  Irish  saint  and  the  latter  the  famous 
Irish  missionary  to  the  Scots,  St.  Columba.  The  parish 
formerly  took  its  name  from  both  of  these  saints,  being 
sometimes  called  after  one  and  sometimes  after  the  other. 
In  1153  it  is  the  parish  of  /S"  ColumbcB,  kerbery  vocatam. 
In  1291  it  was  Carber's,  and  in  1511  Ck)lumba'8  parish, 
but  the  name  of  the  former  has  proved  more  enduring 
than  that  of  his  more  illustrious  compeer.  The  church  of 
the  parish  of  Santan  or  Santon,  called  in  1511  St.  Santan, 
is  named  after  St.  Sanctan,  also  an  Irish  saint,  not  from 
St.  Ann,  as  the  modern  map-makers  have  it.  The  parish 
church  of  Bride,  called  in  1511  St.  Brigide,  is  dedicated  to 
St.  Brigit,  the  most  famous  of  Irish  female  saints. 

We  now  come  to  the  names  of  those  parish  churches 
and  parishes  which  are  of  doubtful,  but  stiU  probably  Irish, 
origin.  With  regard  to  the  first  of  these,  that  of  Grcrman, 
which  has  been  given  to  the  cathedral  of  the  diocese  as 
weU  as  to  a  parish  church  and  its  parish,  the  '  Traditionary 
Ballad '  tells  us  that  St.  Patrick,  before  he  left  the  Island, 
'  blessed  Saint  Grermanus,  and  left  him  a  bishop  in  it  to 
strengthen  the  faith  more  and  more.'  ^  A  difiiculty,  how- 
ever, arises  from  the  fact  that  the  name  of  Germanus  does 
not  occur  in  the  Irish  calendars,  and  we  have  only  the 
comparatively  recent  authority  of  Joceljm  for  his  being 
St.  Patrick's  disciple.  By  way  of  solving  this  it  may  not, 
perhaps,  be  unreasonable  to  conjecture  ^  that  Grermanus 
was  substituted  for  Coemanus  by  later  writers,  who  would 
remember  the  famous  saint  of  Auxerre,  while  forgetting 
the  obscure  Irishman.  This  Coemanus,  or,  as  he  is  called 
in  Irish  martyrologies,  Mochsemog,  is  known  to  have  been 
one  of  St.  Patrick's  disciples.  The  name  of  the  parish 
church  of  Braddan  has  been  connected  with  the  famous 

*  Train,  History  of  the  Isle  of  Man^  p.  62. 

*  This  is  not  an  original  conjecture  of  the  writer's.     He  has  seen  it  somewhere,  but 
cannot  remember  where. 


CONNECTION  OF  ISLE  OF  MAN  WITH  IRELAND  117 

Irish  saint  and  navigator,  Brandinus  or  Brendinus,  or  with 
the  St.  Brandon  who,  though  not  mentioned  by  the  monks 
of  Rushen  Abbe;^,  was,  according  to  Manx  historians, 
bishop  of  Sodor  and  Man  from  1098  to  1113.  This  theory 
does  not  seem  consonant  with  orthodox  philology,  but 
nevertheless  it  may  be  correct.  In  1231  the  BuU  of  Pope 
Gregory  ix  mentions  terras  8^^  Bradarni,  and  in  1291 
Bishop  Mark  held  a  synod  at  Bradan. 

The  name  of  the  parish  of  Rushen,  which  is  first  men- 
tioned in  1408  as  of  Sanctce  Trinitatis  inter  prata,  '  of  the 
Holy  Trinity  among  the  Meadows,'  presents  considerable 
difficulties.  In  the  first  manorial  roll  of  1511  it  is  called 
Parochia  8^*  Trinitatis  in  Rushen.  The  most  probable 
interpretation  seems  to  be  that  Rushen  has  derived  its 
name  from  St.  Russein  of  Inis-Picht,  whose  name  is  recorded 
in  the  martyrology  of  Tallaght,  and  who  was  probably 
forgotten  before  1511,  when,  Rushen  being  regarded  as  a 
place-name,  in  may  have  been  substituted  for  noo,  saint. 
The  parish  church  of  Malew  is  generally  supposed  to  have 
derived  its  name  from  St.  Lupus,  the  pupil  of  St.  German 
of  Auxerre,  who  was  sent  to  Britain  to  confound  the 
Pelagians.  In  confirmation  of  this  theory  may  be  quoted 
the  inscription  on  an  ancient  paten,  now  in  Malew  church, 
8ancte  Lupe,  or  a  pro  nobis,  and  the  entry  in  the  roll  of  1511, 
Parochia  8^'  Lupi,  It  is  more  probable,  however,  that 
the  name  may  come  from  that  of  an  Irish  saint,  Moliba 
or  Molipa,  the  Latinised  form  of  Moliu  or  Malliu,  whose 
name  is  found  in  the  Calendar  of  CEngus,  and  in  the  form 
Moliwe  in  a  Bull  of  Pope  Gregory  xi.,  relating  to  a  presenta- 
tion to  this  very  church,  dated  1377.  The  four  remaining 
parishes,  Andreas,  Michael,  Ballaugh,  and  Lezayre,  had 
probably  no  churches  till  after  the  connection  with  Ireland 
had  come  to  an  end ;  the  two  latter  parishes,  indeed, 
having  been  mainly  occupied  by  marshes  till  a  compara- 
tively recent  date. 

Of  the  ancient  keeills  referred  to  above,  the  remains  of 
more  than  one  hundred  are  still  to  be  found,  the  earliest 


118  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

of  which  probably  date  from  the  sixth  century,  and  of  their 
names  about  thirty  survive.  They  are  for  the  most  part 
of  very  small  size,  not  exceeding  twenty  feet  by  twelve. 
This  fact,  and  their  remarkably  irregular  distribution,  con- 
clusively disprove  the  theory  advanced  by  the  '  Tradition- 
ary Ballad '  that  they  were  the  chapels  established  by  St. 
Grerman  for  public  worship,  one  for  each  four  quarterlands.^ 
Their  only  possible  use,  therefore,  was  as  habitations  for 
the  Culdees  or  clerical  recluses.  St.  Patrick  and  St.  Bridget 
have  each  given  their  names  to  seven  of  these  keeills,  St. 
Martin,  possibly  the  St.  Martin  who  is  said  to  have  been 
St.  Patrick's  uncle,  has  one  keeill  called  after  him.  St. 
Columba  has  one,  and  Lingan,  also  an  Irish  saint,  two. 

But  it  is  not  only  through  these  names  that  we  are  able 
to  trace  the  intimate  connection  of  the  Isle  of  Man  with 
Ireland  between  the  fifth  and  eighth  centuries,  for  we  find 
that  the  round  tower  on  Peel  Island  is  precisely  of  the  same 
form  as  that  in  Ireland,  and  that  the  inscriptions  in  the 
Ogam  character  recently  discovered  are,  according  to 
Professor  Rhys,  of  the  oldest  Irish  type.  A  very  signifi- 
cant story,  as  showing  this  connection,  is  related  by  Cormac 
in  his  glossary  concerning  the  visit  of  Senchan  Torpeist, 
who  was  chief  poet  of  Ireland  from  a.d.  649-62,  to  the  Isle 
of  Man.  It  appears  that  he  took  with  him  fifty  poets  as 
his  retinue,  besides  students,  and  that  on  their  arrival  m 
the  island  the  first  person  they  saw  was  an  old  woman  on 
the  shore  cutting  seaweed,  who  asked  them  who  they  were. 
On  their  replying,  she  gave  them  a  couplet  of  verse  and 
challenged  them  to  give  the  corresponding  couplet,  which 
one  of  their  number  did.  This  anecdote  would  tend  to 
show  that  the  Isle  of  Man  was  one  of  the  regular  circuits 
of  the  Irish  poets,  and  that  its  language  was  at  that  time 
identical  with  the  Irish.  These  visits  of  Irishmen  to  the 
Isle  of  Man  were  doubtless  returned  by  visits  of  Manxmen 
to  Ireland.  For  it  must  be  remembered  that  till  the  end 
of  the  eighth  century  Ireland  was  the  centre  of  European 

^  Each  quarterland  contains  on  an  average  seventy-five  acres. 


t 


CONNECTION  OF  ISLE  OF  MAN  WITH  IRELAND  119 

culture  and  civilisation  as  well  as  of  religious  zeal,  and  the 
Irish  Church  was  so  celebrated  as  a  school  of  learning  that 
students  flocked  to  Ireland  from  great  distances.  Till  the 
inroads  of  the  Northmen,  there  seems  to  have  been  only 
one  ^  break  in  this  period  of  peace  and  prosperity,  which 
took  place  at  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  century,  when 
it  is  recorded  by  Bede  that  the  Mevanian  Islands  ^  were 
conquered  by  Edwin  of  Northumbria.  It  is,  however, 
doubtful  if  Man  is  included  under  this  term,  for  King 
Alfred,  in  his  translation  of  Bede's  text,  substitutes 
Anglesey  for  Mevanias  Insulas,  and  William  of  Malmesbury, 
writing  in  the  twelfth  century,  quotes  Bede's  words,  and 
remarks  that  '  the  Mevanian  Islands  are  those  which  we 
now  call  Anglesey,  that  is,  the  Isles  of  the  Angles.'  ^  It 
is,  however,  curious  that  the  plural  should  be  used.  Even 
if  the  Isle  of  Man  had  been  conquered  by  Edwin,  there 
would  not  have  been  any  permanent  results,  as  the  English 
were  driven  from  the  coasts  of  Cumberland  and  Lancashire 
soon  afterwards,  and  consequently  it  is  not  likely  that  they 
retained  their  hold  on  the  small  island  to  the  west  of  those 
coasts.  The  probability  seems  to  be  that  the  Isle  of  Man 
remained  under  Ultonian  rule,  and,  therefore,  in  close 
connection  with  Ireland,  till  the  incursions  of  the  North- 
men, and  that  even  then  this  connection  did  not  entirely 
cease,  for,  if  the  account  in  the  Book  of  Rights  is  credible, 
the  Isle  of  Man  was  tributary  till  the  tenth  century,  and 
the  King  of  Ireland  enjoyed  '  the  fruit  of  Manann  in  Tara.'  ^ 


1  The  exploits  attributed  to  Baetan  MacCairill,  King  of  Ulster,  at  the  end  of  the 
sixth  century,  were,  till  the  publication  of  Celtic  Britain^  by  Professor  Ehys,  supposed 
to  hare  taken  place  in  the  Isle  of  Man  ;  but  he  has  shown  that  they  really  occurred 
in  the  region  called  in  Welsh  the  land  of  Manaw,  and  by  the  Goidels  Mannan,  which 
is  the  country  between  the  Firths  of  Clyde  and  Forth. 

2  Mevama2  Brittonum  insulas,  quce  inter  Hiherniam  et  Brittaniam  sitce  sunt. — 
Ecclesiastical  History,  lib.  ii. 

'  It  is  perhaps  worth  noting  that  Train  (History  of  the  Isle  of  Man,  pp.  37-49), 
misled  by  the  identity  of  the  early  name  of  Anglesey — Mona — with  that  of  the  Isle  of 
Man,  has  introduced  a  dynasty  of  Welsh  kings,  whom  he  made  to  rule  in  Man  from 
A.D.  517-919,  whereas  the  Welsh  isle  was  really  the  sphere  of  their  dominion. 

*  O'Donovan,  Book  of  Rights,  1847,  pp.  3,  9. 


120  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Apart,  however,  from  the  fact  that  all  references  to 
Manann  do  not  necessarily  apply  to  the  Isle  of  Man, 
it  seems  improbable  that  the  tribute  was  regularly  paid, 
as  the  incursions  of  the  Northmen,  which  began  at 
the  end  of  the  eighth  century,  continued  at  short 
intervals,  till  they  definitely  established  their  rule.  The 
first  of  these  incursions  is  recorded  by  the  Annals  of 
Ulster  in  798  in  the  following  words  :  '  The  burning  of  Inis- 
Patrick  by  the  Gentiles,  and  cattle  plunder  of  the  country 
was  borne  off,  and  the  shrine  of  Dachonna  was  broken  by 
them,  and  the  spoils  of  the  sea  (taken)  by  them  also, 
between  Erinn  and  Alba.'  O' Donovan  understood  the 
Inis-Patrick  here  mentioned  to  be  the  island  so  called  on 
the  coast  of  Dublin,  while  Todd,  in  his  introduction  to  the 
Wars  of  the  Gaedhill  with  the  Gaill,  considered  it  to  refer 
to  Peel  Island  in  the  Isle  of  Man. 

The  mention  of  the  shrine  of  Dachonna  would  tend  to 
show  the  correctness  of  the  latter  opinion,  and,  even  if  it 
were  not  so,  it  is  not  likely  that  the  pirates  who  took 
'  spoils  of  the  sea  between  Erinn  and  Alba '  (Scotland) 
would  have  avoided  the  Isle  of  Man.  Such  expeditions 
were  evidently  merely  for  plunder,  as  there  was  at  that 
time  no  attempt  to  establish  any  form  of  government. 
This  latter  process  probably  began  about  the  middle  of  the 
ninth  century,  when  a  Scandinavian  dynasty,  whose  power 
extended  along  the  greater  portion  of  the  east  coast  of 
Ireland,  was  seated  at  Dublin.  This  change  of  rulers, 
even  if  it  did  not  extend  to  Man,  would  put  an  entire  stop 
to  any  direct  intercourse  with  the  Irish  Court,  and  to  the 
payment  of  the  tribute  at  an  earlier  date  than  that  men- 
tioned by  the  Book  of  Rights,  It  is  clear,  too,  from  the 
frequent  mention  of  the  gall-gaedhel  by  the  Irish  annalists 
as  being  the  inhabitants  of  Man  and  the  Isles,  that  a  con- 
siderable number  of  Scandinavian  colonists  must  have  at 
this  time  effected  a  permanent  settlement  in  these  islands  ; 
for  the  gall-gaedhel  are  described  as  being  a  mixed  race, 
partly  Gaelic   and  partly  Norse.      It  was   not  till   1060 


CONNECTION  OF  ISLE  OF  MAN  WITH  IRELAND  121 

that,  according  to  the  Four  Masters,  Murchadh,  son  of 
Diarmaid,  King  of  Dublin  and  Munster,  having  driven  out 
the  Danes  in  1052,  '  went  to  Manann,  and  carried  tribute 
from  thence.'  This  was  apparently  only  a  temporary 
success,  as  in  1072  the  Danes  were  in  possession  of  Dublin, 
and  in  1079  the  Isle  of  Man  was  conquered  by  the  Scandi- 
navian Godred  Crovan,  who  afterwards  subdued  Dublin 
and  a  great  part  of  Leinster.  Godred' s  son  Lagman  suc- 
ceeded, presumably,  to  the  same  dominion,  but  on  his 
death  in  1096,  Celtic  rule  again  revived  for  a  brief  space  ; 
for  we  find  that  the  '  chiefs  of  the  Isles  '  (Sodor  and  Man) 
recognised  the  King  of  Ireland  as  their  overlord  by  sending 
messengers  to  ask  him  to  appoint  '  some  competent  person 
of  the  royal  race  to  be  their  king,  till  Olave,  son  of  Godred, 
should  have  grown  up.'  ^  Murchadh  consequently  nomin- 
ated Donald,  a  kinsman  of  his  own,  who  soon  began  to 
govern  so  tyrannically  that  after  three  years'  reign  he  was 
summarily  expelled  by  the  Manx.  Then,  in  1113,  after  the 
two  expeditions  of  Magnus,  King  of  Norway,  Scandinavian 
rule  was  firmly  re-established  in  Man  and  the  Isles  under 
Godred  Crovan' s  son  Olave,  and  Olave' s  son  Godred, 
powerful  rulers,  who  entered  into  alliances  with  the  Irish 
kings  on  equal  terms.  Under  their  successor  Reginald, 
who  ascended  the  throne  in  1188,  English  influence  began 
to  make  itself  felt  both  in  Ireland  and  in  the  Isle  of  Man. 
In  the  Isle  of  Man  it  increased  so  much  that  in  1213 
Reginald  did  homage  to  John,  who  in  1214  took  him, 
'  together  with  his  possessions  .  .  .  under  our  protection.'  ^ 
Thus  ended  the  political  connection  of  Man  and  Ireland. 
In  other  respects,  however,  the  connection  between  the 
two  countries  continued.  Towards  the  end  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  probably  on  account  of  the  Statute  of 
Kilkenny,  a  number  of  Irish,  bearing,  for  the  most  part, 
Hiberno-Norman  names,  such  as  Mac  Walter,  Mac  William, 
and  MacGibbon,  came  to  Man,  where  they  flourished  and 

1  Chronicle  of  Man,  vol.  xxii.,  Manx  Society's  Publications. 

2  Manx  Society's  Publications,  vol.  vii.  pp.  36,  37. 


122  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

increased  in  numbers.  In  one  way  only  was  their  fate 
possibly  a  worse  one  than  if  they  had  remained  in  Ireland, 
and  that  was  in  regard  to  their  names,  as  the  euphonious 
designations  referred  to  gradually  became  corrupted  into 
Qualtrough,  Quilliam,  and  Cubbon. 

Another  bond  between  Man  and  Ireland  was  trade. 
Till  1765,  when  Man  came  under  the  direct  influence  of 
the  English  commercial  system,  its  trade  with  Ireland, 
mainly  by  way  of  Dublin  and  Peel,  was  greater  than  with 
any  other  country. 

Altogether,  as  you  will  have  seen,  the  connection 
between  the  two  countries  has  been  a  very  intimate 
one.  The  chief  token  of  this  at  the  present  day  is  the 
nomenclature,  both  of  places  and  of  persons,  in  the 
smaller  island.  Between  sixty  and  seventy  per  cent,  of 
the  Manx  place-names  and  personal  names  are  of  Goidelic 
origin,  about  twenty  per  cent,  being  Scandinavian,  and 
the  rest  English.  But  the  most  significant  fact,  as  showing 
the  connection,  is  that  the  forms  taken  by  the  Goidelic  names, 
especially  by  the  personal  names,  which  are,  generally 
speaking,  older  than  the  place-names,  are  those  which  are 
more  usual  in  Ireland  than  in  Scotland,  though  the  lan- 
guage, owing  to  the  more  recent  connection  with  Scotland 
(the  Isle  of  Man  having  been  under  Scottish  rule  during  the 
latter  part  of  the  thirteenth  century),  approaches  some- 
what more  closely  to  Scottish  than  Irish. 

Though  Man  now  looks  eastwards,  rather  than  west- 
wards, it  has  a  remaining  bond  which  still  links  it  closely 
to  Ireland,  a  bond  that  never  can  be  broken — the  bond 
of  race.  This  shows  itself  in  the  strong  sympathy  between 
Irishmen  and  Manxmen.  They  assimilate  easily,  and  they 
'  get  on  '  well  together.  Let  us  hope,  in  conclusion,  that 
the  old  Manx  proverb,  *  Mie  Nherin,  mie  Mannin,^  i.e. 
*  What  is  good  for  Ireland  is  good  for  Man,'  may  prove  to  be 
an  apt  one  politically  as  well  as  in  other  respects. 


LANDAVENSIUM  OEDO  CHART AEUM       123 


LANDAy:eNSIUM  ORDO  CHARTARUM 
Alfred  Anscombe 

The  chartulary  of  the  ancient  church  of  Llandaff  deserves 
to  be  numbered  among  the  most  venerable  of  the  many 
monuments  of  Latin  Christianity  which  have  originated 
in  countries  beyond  the  borders  of  Italy.  The  series  of 
charters  it  preserves  begins  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth 
century,  and  runs  onward  for  seven  hundred  years.  The 
study  of  the  earliest  documents  of  the  series  is  complicated 
and  difficult.  This  is  owing  partly  to  their  isolated 
antiquity  ;  but  chiefly  to  the  fact  that  no  chronographical 
data  whatever  appear  in  any  one  of  them  until  we  have 
penetrated  to  the  middle  of  the  tenth  century.  This  curious 
feature  of  the  Llandaff  charters  has  hitherto  met  with 
only  slight  recognition.  It  must  be  obvious,  however, 
that  the  views  of  the  collective  value  of  the  charters  of 
any  particular  period  are,  in  the  circumstances,  merely 
tentative,  and  that  conclusions  based  upon  those  views 
cannot  avoid  being  unreliable.  Real  progress,  in  short, 
cannot  be  made  in  research  in  connection  with  these  docu- 
ments until  they  have  been  arranged  in  their  due  and 
proper  order. 

The  criteria  of  distribution  are  numerous  and  reliable. 
The  lists  of  witnesses — royal,  prelatic,  clerical,  and  lay — 
are  fairly  full,  and  from  time  to  time  we  get  a  note  of  son- 
ship,  or  even  of  more  remote  descent,  and  of  mother- 
hood, also,  in  reference  to  princely  families.  There  are 
four  methods  of  arrangement  available  :  (1)  by  the  bishops  ; 
(2)  by  the  kings  ;  (3)  by  the  abbots  of  the  diocese,  of  whom 
the  three  principal  ones  are  named  and  identified  in  many 
charters  ;  and  (4)  by  any  two  or  more  of  the  preceding 
methods  employed  concurrently.  The  first  two  methods 
are  so  obvious  that  I  need  not  comment  upon  their  use. 
The  third  has  not  been  adopted  as  yet  by  any  investigator. 


124  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Its  ratio  is  this  :  In  the  second  half  of  the  fifth  century 
three  eminent  British  ecclesiastics,  named  Catoc,  Ildut, 
and  Dochu,  founded  abbeys  in  the  bishopric  of  Llandaff. 
Their  successors  in  the  sixth  century  are  respectively 
styled:  (1)  dbhas altaris Sancti  Catoci,  or  Carhani  Uallis,  or 
Nant  Carhan ;  (2)  ahhas  Sancti  Ilduti,  or  Ilduti,  or  Lannildvi; 
(3)  dbhas  Docunni,  or  Docguinni,  or  Dochou.  Whether  the 
three  abbeys  were  founded  in  the  order  in  which  I  have 
named  them,  I  cannot  say.  But  this  is  the  order  of  pre- 
cedence, and,  except  in  a  few  instances,  it  is  the  order  in 
which  the  three  abbots  subscribed  the  deeds  they  wit- 
nessed to.  Now,  in  the  time  of  Bishop  Oudoceus  at  least 
twenty  grants  were  made  to  his  church.  Fifteen  of  these 
preserve  the  names  and  abbacies  of  fifteen  successive 
abbots,  and  it  should  follow  that  the  threefold  course  of 
concurrent  tenancy  must  have  been  broken  so  frequently, 
that  the  succession  of  the  abbots  ought  to  be  exactly 
determinable,  and  the  chronological  order  of  the  grants 
themselves  be  no  less  clearly  revealed.  In  the  following 
tables  we  get,  first,  the  order  of  the  names  as  they  are 
given  in  the  chartulary ;  second,  the  true  order.  The 
arable  numbers  indicate  the  first ;  the  capital  letters  the 
second.  C,  /,  and  D  indicate  the  abbeys.  The  commas 
show  that  the  preceding  name  on  the  same  line  reappears. 


1 

2 

I. 

3                4              5            6 

7         8 

9 

B 

C 

A              N            H           D 

I        K 

G 

a  lacob 

)) 

„            Sulgen     Concen       „ 
Catgen 

J>                      51 

if 

/.  Catgen 

j> 

Biuon    Gurhaual  Colbrit  Catgen 

Colbrit    „ 

>> 

D.  Eutigirn 

n 

„            Saturn      Sulgen 

ludhurb  „ 

Sulgen 

10 

11 

12                  13              14 

15 

E 

P 

0                  MP 

L 

C.  Concen 

)» 

Sulgen                „            Dagan 

Concen 

/.  Congen 

;> 

Gurthauar         Colbrit      Eluoin 

Colbrit 

D.  Sulgen 

>) 

Saturn            ludhubr    Saturn 

ludhubr 

The  method  of  compilation  of  the  chartulary  of  Llandaff 


LANDAVENSIUM  OEDO  CHAETARUM       125 

for  Oudoceus's  times,  is  quite  clear  :  the  register  or  com- 
piler knew  that  lacob  was  abbot  of  Llangatoc  at  Oudoceus's 
consecration,  and  took  three  '  lacob '  deeds.  He  then, 
quite  by  chance,  and  out  of  order,  transcribed  a  '  Sulgen  ' 
deed.  He  detected  his  error,  and  copied  all  the  '  Concen  ' 
grants  he  had,  except  one,  and  then  completed  the  '  Sulgen  ' 
ones.  After  that  he  wrote  out  the  '  Dagan '  charter  in  the 
last  place  but  one  under  Oudoceus,  and  then  transcribed 
the  '  Concen  '  deed  he  had  passed  over.  The  broken  suc- 
cession is  clearly  indicated  by  the  recurrence  of  names  in 
the  wrong  places,  and  the  true  chronological  order  of  the 
three  abbots,  and  of  the  grants  they  witnessed  in 
Oudoceus's  day  is  as  follows  : — 

II. 


3 

1 

2        6 

10 

11 

9 

5 

A 

B 

C       D 

E 

F 

G 

H 

C.  lacob 

,, 

„  Concen 

jj 

j> 

)} 

j> 

/.  Biuon 

Catger 

^     })       >j 

Congen 

>> 

Colbrit 

j> 

D.  Eutigirn 

)> 

„  Sulgen 

>» 

M 

5) 

* 

8 

15 

13 

4 

12 

14 

K 

L 

M 

N 

0 

P 

C.  Concen 

55 

Sulgen 

>) 

5) 

Dagan 

/.  Colbrit 

J5 

„         Gurthauar 

}> 

Eluoin 

D.  ludhubr 

JJ 

„            Saturn 

>> 

jj 

ludhurb 


*   ~j  was  apparently  granted  during  a  vacancy  in  Dochu's  abbey. 

In  the  second  instalment  of  this  series  I  hope  to  be 
allowed  to  apply  this  criterion  to  the  questions  involved  in 
the  re-arrangement  of  the  documents  relating  to  Bishop 
Oudoceus,  ca.  520.  In  this  paper  I  shall  only  deal  with 
the  grants  made  to  Dubricius  and  his  suffragans. 


—  s 

lit 


li^ 


fi  I 


00  O  


_  J5    iT  •« 

I    I    I        1^        «       1 

5  -  ;2  I   s  -^ 


§ 


-.11 


la 


iriii=^ 


I  1 

i     a 


3    "J 


•2  i 


SI 


'S  2 

'B  2 

o  2 

a  a 


>.c 


^  <j  J 


^1 


3    ^     55 


I  nil  .^i 


■2       S 

a     Sd 


bo     0 


g:^ 


8^    2.. 

©  t  C  .  J  .rf   ^. 


^^  lllll 


I 

o 


It 


^  §  3  S  s  s»«.s 


•3     -"S 


111 


liitig 


VO                                                          O                                                          lO 

XII. 

GUEUANNO 1 

ii.  eliud  | 

Hi.  cuan  | 

t.  concu  1 

XI. 

Tbliauo 

• 

ii.  iouguil,  1 
disc.  T. 

i.  typhei,  | 
nepos  T. 

Hi.  fidelis,  1 
di^c.  T. 

X. 

Tbll^uo 

i.  iouil,  disci- 
pidusTeliaui 

H.  fidelis,  dw- 
cipulus  T. 

m ... 

S3 

^1 

VII. 
Tbliauo 
ii.  arguistil 

Hi.  elguoret 
iv.  conguarui 

VI. 

Tbliauo 
H.  arguistil 

V.  conbran 

vi.  iudon 
vii.  guordocui 

Hi.  elguoret 

iv.  conguarui 

viii.  gurmoi  | 

ix.  gurhal  | 

V. 

DUBRICIO 

ii.  arguistil 
Hi.  ubelbiu 
iv.  iouann 

V.  iunabui 

vi.  conbran 

vii.  guoruan 

viii.  elhearn 

ix.  iudnou 

X.  gurdocui 
xi.  guernabui 

IV. 

DUBRICIO 

ii.  vbeluiuo 

Hi.  merchguin  | 
iv.  cuelin 

III. 

DUBRICIO 

ii.  arguistil 
Hi.  uuelbiu 
iv.  iouan 
V.  iunapius 
vi.  conuran 
vii.  guruan 

ndicates  that 
r;  the  dotted 
le  does;  the 
line  indicates 

II. 

DUBRICIO 

ii.  arguistil 
Hi.  vbeluiu 
iv.  iouann 
V.  iunapius 
vi.  conuran 
vii.  goruan 

upright  bar  i 
)es  not  re-appea 
,d  along  till  1 
oth  bar  and 
ection. 

I. 

DUBBITIO 

ii.  elhearn 
Hi.  iudner 
iv.  guordocui 
V.  guernabui 

the  witness  d( 
line  is  carric 
absence  of  b 
possible  conn 

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VOL.  VI 


130 


THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 


O !  'S  TU  'S  GURA  TU  TH'  AIR  M'  AIRE 
Miss  F.  M.  Morrison 

[A  newspaper  correspondence,  in  which  several  songs  and  airs  associated 
with  the  same  chorus  have  been  brought  to  light,  followed  the  publication 
(Celtic  Review,  vol.  ii.  p.  122)  by  Mr.  Malcolm  Macfarlane  of 

•  0  'a  tu  's  gura  tu  th'  air  m*  aire.' 

The  chorus,  with  some  little  adaptation,  appears  to  have  been  a  popular 
model  for  songs  in  praise  of  one's  native  place.  One  such  that  has  been 
published  is  in  praise  of  Applecross,  and  another  that  we  have  heard  sung 
takes  Sunart  for  its  theme.  Prominence  having  been  given  in  the  corre- 
spondence to  the  name  of  Dr.  Morrison,  Larkhall,  his  sister,  Miss  Morrison, 
at  his  request  has  sent  the  following  version — music  and  words — for  publica- 
tion, with  the  remark  that  of  several  airs  to  which  the  song  is  sung  this  is 
thought  to  be  by  far  the  prettiest.  .  .  .  The  Rev.  M.  N.  Munro  informs  us 
that  there  is  another  version  of  the  air  in  j  time,  and  that  it  appears  in  the 
Introduction  to  Songs  of  the  Hebrides.  He  also  sends  an  additional  verse 
heard  in  Uig  in  Lewis,  and  we  give  it  in  brackets.] 


1=!? 


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Seisd. 

0  !  's  tu  's  gura  tu  th'  air  m'  aire ; 

0  !  's  tu  's  gura  tu  th'  air  m'  aire ; 

'S  tu  fein,  a  ruin,  tha  tigh'nn  dluth  fa-near  dhomh, 

'S  gu  'n  d'  fhalbh  mo  shtigradh  bho'n  dh'  fh^g  thu  m'  baile. 

Dh'  fhalbh  mo  shiigradh  is  dh'  fhalbh  mo  mhanran, 

Mo  thoil-inntinn  is  mo  che61-g4ire ; 

Is  mura  till  thu  fo  cheann  an  r^ithe 

Gur  ann  san  uaigh  nithear  suas  mo  chkradh. 

'S  iomadh  pian  th'  ann  an  gaol  na  h-6ige ; 
'S  ann  leam  bu  mhiann  a  bhi  gad'  ph6gadh. 


BAS  BHRAIN  AGUS  DHIARMAID  131 

'S  mo  l^mhan  sinte  ri  d'  mhuineal  b6idlieach, 
Is  mi  gad'  dhion  mar  an  t-ian  's  an  t6ir  air. 

Gaol  na  h-6ige  tha  bron  is  pian  ann ; 

Tha  mi  le6inte  leis  bho  cheann  bliadhna ; 

Is  cadal  c6mhnard  no  st61t  cha  dian  mi, 

Is  m'  aire  'n  comhnuidh  air  b6idhchead  t'  iomhaigh. 

Tha  mi  tinn  's  mi  ri  caoidh  mo  dh6chais 
An  nochd  's  an  raoir  's  fad  na  h-oidhcb'  bh6  'n  raoir 
Do  chomhradh  meallt'  anns  a'  gbeamhradh  dhomhsa 
Chuir  fait  mo  chinn  leis  a'  ghaoith  'na  dhl6than. 

[Thug  thu  'ghealach  bhuam,  thug  thu  'ghrian  bhuam, 
Thug  thu  'chiall  bhuam,  gur  i  bu  mh6  leam ; 
Thug  thu  'n  cridhe  bha  'n  taobh  stigh  de  m'  cliabh  bhuam, 
'S  car  son  a  riamh  nach  do  rinn  sinn  p6sadh  ?] 


BAS  BHRAIN  AGUS  DHIARMAID 
Donald  MacDonald 

Mr.  MacDonald's  version  of  the  Diarmaid  story  is  of  peculiar  interest 
because  of  its  reference  to  the  death  of  Bran,  and  its  traditional  connection 
with  a  place-name  which  Mr.  Watson  in  his  '  Place-names  of  Koss 
and  Cromarty '  suggested  to  have  a  mythological  reference.  It  also  throws 
light  on  the  origin  of  the  place-names  '  Cam  na  Beiste'  and  '  Loch  na  beiste.' 
There  is  no  account  of  Bran's  death  either  in  Campbell's  West  Highlcmd 
Tales,  or  in  Waifs  and  Strays  of  Celtic  Tradition.  The  various  versions, 
which,  of  course,  are  fragmentary,  make  reference,  however,  to  a  hunt 
being  in  progress  when  Diarmaid  was  sent  against  the  boar.  The  Suther- 
land version  of  the  boar  of  Ben  Loyal  cave  indicates  that  Fionn,  Ossian, 
and  Oscar  tried  in  vain  to  kill  it  before  Diarmaid  went  against  it.  An  Irish 
version  of  Bran's  death  is  that  he  was  killed  by  Fionn  when  in  hot  pursuit 
of  a  fawn,  supposed  to  be  Ossian's  mother.  She  cried  out  to  Fionn,  and 
ran  under  him,  and  Fionn  in  trying  to  stop  Bran  rapped  his  knees  together 
and  crushed  the  faithful  hound. 

Mr.  MacDonald's  reference  to  Diarmaid's  '  ball  seirc '  is  also  interesting. 
In  the  West  Highland  Tales  the  spot  is  '  on  his  face,'  but  the  location  is 
indicated  by  the  reference  that  he  covered  it  with  his  helmet.  The  Eoss- 
shire  version  is  more  specific  with  the  exact  location  'on  the  flat  of  his 
forehead.'  One  version  ( West  Highland  Tales,  vol.  iii.  p.  56)  calls  the  spot  'sugh 
seirc,'  (love  juice),  and  refers  to  it  vaguely  as  '  a  kind  of  spot  in  the  face 
of  the  man.'    The  origin  of  the  'ball  seirc'  is  explained  in  Dr.    Hyde's 


132  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Sgealuidhe  Gaedhealach,  where  a  young  woman,  symbolic  of  youth,  thus 
honoured  Diarmaid  among  the  Feinne. 

As  in  other  versions  Diarmaid  is  a  handsome  man.  He  is  also  credited 
with  having  '  the  best  head  in  the  Feinne  altogether'  (West  Highland  Tales, 
vol.  iii.  p.  54). 

There  is  no  reference  in  Mr.  MacDonald's  fragment  to  an  elopement. 
Fionn's  jealousy  appears  to  be  anticipatory.  In  the  Sutherland  version  it 
is  '  the  king '  and  not  Fionn  who  is  jealous,  apparently  not  considering 
Diarmaid  worthy  of  his  daughter. 

The  manner  of  Diarmaid's  death  diflFers  from  the  Irish  version,  in  which 
he  is  disembowelled  by  the  boar  before  it  dies.  The  Achilles-like  spot  is 
referred  to  in  Mr.  MacDonald's  version  as  pointedly  as  in  the  South  Uist 
version  (fFest  Highland  Tales,  vol.  iii.  p.  54)  in  which  it  is  called  'Ball  Dorain'  (a 
mole — an  otter  mark),  which  was  'in  his  right  heel, 'and  'he  could  not  be  killed 
unless  a  spike  should  go  into  his  heel  in  the  mole.'  Other  West  Highland 
versions  mention  the  sole  as  the  vulnerable  part.  In  Waifs  and  Strays  of 
Celtic  Tradition,  vol.  iv.  chapter  iv.,  it  is  stated  that  '  death  could  only  be 
by  the  sole  *  (bas  am  bonn  dubh  a  choise).  Another  version  indicates  the 
forepart  of  the  heel  (bonn  dubh  na  coise).  Reference  is  also  made  to  the 
statement  that  the  bristle  entered  beneath  his  great  toe  (fo  ordag  a 
choise). 

A  perusal  of  Mr.  MacDonald's  interesting  fragment  increases  our  long- 
felt  regret  that  no  systematic  collection  has  ever  been  made  in  Ross  and 
Cromarty  of  the  tales  of  the  Feinne.  They  were  current  among  the  people 
until  a  comparatively  recent  date,  but  now  have  degenerated  into  the  fairy- 
and-giant-legend  form.  Mr.  Watson's  '  Place-Names '  affords  ample  evidence 
of  the  tendency  to  localise  the  tales  in  his  native  county.  The  story  of 
the  burning  of  the  women  at  Brugh  Farala  in  Skye  is  also  told  in  connection 
with  Knock  farrel,  StrathpefFer,  and  references  to  the  tale  are  still  current 
in  the  district.  Hugh  Miller  gives  half-humorously  a  version  of  the  Garry 
story  in  Scen£s  and  Legends,  and  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  that  pioneer 
collector  of  folk-lore  was  unacquainted  with  Gaelic,  and  therefore  impervious 
to  the  spell  of  the  great  cycle.  In  Miller's  version  Dunskaith  is  on  Nigg 
hill  (Cromarty  North  Souter).  The  '  Smith's  Rock '  of  Ross-shire  is  Craigie 
howe.  Black  Isle.  The  cave  where  Fionn  and  his  men  lie  asleep  on  their 
elbows  is  still  pointed  out,  and  natives  in  the  district  continue  to  repeat 
fragments  of  the  tales  of  the  Feinne.  Versions  of  the  legend  in  English 
were  current  among  schoolboys  as  late  as  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago. 

D.  A.  Mackenzie. 

Bha  an  Fheinn  latha  a'  sealg  an  Cam-na-Beiste,  cnoc 
cruinn  ard  ann  am  monadh  Ach-an-allt  mu  choinneamh  an 
Uillt-Dheirg,  far  an  robh  blast  fhiadhaich  ris  an  d'thuirteadh 
an  tore  nimhe  a'  comhnaidh,  agus  o'n  d'fhuair  an  earn  an 


I 


BAS  BHRAIN  AGUS  DHIARMAID  133 

t-ainm,  's  mar  an  ceudna  loch  beag  faisg  air  a'  charn  ris  an 
canar  Loch-na-Beiste. 

Chunnaig  an  Fheinn  a'  bheiste  sa'  charn,  's  chuir  Fionn 
a  chu  Bran  an  aghaidh  na  beiste,  ach  nuair  thainig  e  faisg 
air  an  tore  's  a  chunnaig  e  fhiamh  oillteil  fiadhanta  dhiult 
e  aghaidh  thoirt  air,  agus  thill  e  air  ais  's  'fheaman  'n  a 
ghobhal. 

Chuir  Fionn  air  ais  an  darna  uair  e,  ach  nuair  rainig  e 
mu  choinneamh  na  beiste  cha  rachadh  e  'n  a  comhdhail 
idir.  Thill  e  le  geilt  agus  naire  a'  sgugadh  troimh  'n  fhraoch 
gu  cul-coise  a  mhaighstir  g'a  dhion  fhein.  Ach  las  corruich 
Fhinn,  's  thionndainn  e  air  a'  chu,  's  thug  e  breab  dha  le 
'chois  air  son  a  gheilteachd 

Thar  an  cu  as  le  naire' s  tamailt  sios  le  bruthach,  gus  an 
d'  rainig  e  Ion  an  t-sratha  air  bruach  na  h-aibhne  far  an  do 
chladhaich  e  toll  dha  fhein  san  deachuidh  e  gu  grad  as  an 
t-sealladh,  leis  an  tamailt  gu'n  deachaidh  a  bhualadh. 

Lean  an  Fheinn  air  toir  a'  choin,  's  nuair  rainig  iad  an  toll 
bha  an  cu  a  fradharc. 

Dh'  fheuch  iad  a  thaladh  a  mach,  ach  cha  fhreagradh  e  ; 
's  nuair  thug  iad  thairis  a'  feitheamh,  thoisich  iad  air 
cladhach  air  a  shon.  Ach  mar  bu  doimhne  chladhaicheadh 
iadsan  is  ann  bu  doimhne  thoUadh  esan,  gus  fo  dheireadh, 
dh'  eirich  an  t-uisge  orra  's  b'eigin  dhaibh  stad.  Lion  an 
toll  le  uisge,  's  tha  loch  beag  ann  gus  an  latha  an  diugh  ris 
an  abairear  Loch  Brain,  's  fhuair  an  srath  uile  an  t-ainm 
Srath  Bhrain  o'n  am  sin.  Phill  an  Fheinn  an  sin  air  an  ais 
gus  a'  charn  air  toir  an  tuirc  a  ris,  's  thug  iad  fhein  aghaidh 
air  le'n  cuid  airm,  's  mharbhadh  e  le  Diarmad. 

Bha  Diarmad  na  dhuine  ro  mhaiseach,  's  ball  seirc  air 
clar  aodainn  a  bheireadh  air  na  h-uile  boireannach  a  chith- 
eadh  am  ball  seirc  tuiteam  ann  an  trom  ghaol  air.  Bha 
Fionn  ag  eudach  air  air  sgath  a  mhnatha  fhein,  's  a'sireadh 
doigh  eigin  air  cur  as  da  gun  a  laimh  fhein  a  bhith 
ann. 

Bha  ball-dobhrain  air  sail  chli  Dhiarmaid  a  bha  ro 
leontach,  's  b'  fhiosrach  Fionn  air  so.     Air  an  aobhar  sin. 


134  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

dh'aithn  e  dha  a  dhol  a  thomhas  an  tuirc  gu  mion  air  a 
dhruim  an  aghaidh  nam  f rioghan :  ghon  am  frioghan 
nimheil  am  ball-dobhrain,  's  thug  an  nimh  bas  Dhiarmaid. 

THE  DEATH  OF  BRAN  AND  DIARMAD 

The  Fians  were  one  day  hunting  in  Cam  na  Beiste 
(the  Caim  of  the  Beast),  a  round,  high  hill  in  the  Auch-an- 
Allt  moor,  opposite  Allt-Dearg,  where  a  wild  beast  called 
the  poisonous  boar  dwelt,  and  whence  the  cairn  got  its 
name,  and  also  a  little  loch,  near  the  cairn,  called  Loch  na 
Beiste  (the  Loch  of  the  Beast). 

The  Fians  saw  the  beast  in  the  cairn,  and  Finn  sent  his 
dog  Bran  against  the  beast,  but  when  he  came  near  the 
boar  and  saw  his  horrible,  wild  appearance,  he  refused  to 
attack  him,  and  fled  back  with  his  tail  between  his  legs. 

Finn  sent  him  back  a  second  time,  but  when  he  came 
opposite  the  beast  he  would  on  no  account  attack  him. 
He  returned  with  fear  and  shame,  skidking  through  the 
heather,  and  went  behind  his  master  for  protection. 

But  his  cowardice  aroused  the  wrath  of  Finn,  and 
turning  roimd  he  kicked  him. 

Shamed  and  insulted  the  dog  ran  down  the  brae  till  he 
reached  the  level  ground  of  the  strath  near  the  river  bank, 
where  he  dug  a  hole  for  himself,  and  quickly  disappeared 
out  of  sight  with  shame  at  the  insult  of  being  struck. 

The  Fians  followed  in  pursuit  of  the  dog,  but  when  they 
reached  the  hole  he  was  out  of  sight.  They  tried  to  coax 
him  out,  but  he  would  not  answer,  and  when  they  lost 
patience  waiting  they  began  digging  for  him,  but  the  deeper 
they  dug  the  deeper  he  holed,  till  finally  the  water  rose  upon 
them,  and  they  were  compelled  to  desist.  The  hole  filled 
with  water,  and  there  is  a  little  loch  there  till  this  day  called 
Loch  Bran,  and  the  whole  of  the  Strath  received  the  name 
of  Strath  Bran  (in  Gaelic  Strath  of  Bran)  from  that  time. 

The  Fians  then  returned  back  to  the  cairn  on  the  track 
of  the  boar,  and  they  themselves  attacked  him  with  their 
weapons  and  he  was  slain  by  Diarmad. 


II 


JOHN  MOERISON  OF  HARRIS  135 


Diarmad  was  a  very  handsome  man,  with  a  beauty  spot 
in  the  centre  of  his  forehead,  which  caused  every  female 
who  saw  the  beauty  spot  to  fall  deeply  in  love  with  him. 
Finn  was  jealous  of  him  on  account  of  his  own  wife,  and 
was  seeking  some  way  or  other  to  destroy  him  without  his 
own  hand  appearing  in  the  deed. 

There  was  a  mole  on  Diarmad' s  left  heel  that  was  very 
vulnerable,  and  Finn  was  aware  of  this. 

Therefore  he  commanded  him  to  go  and  measure  the 
boar  closely  along  the  back  against  the  bristles.  The 
poisonous  bristle  pierced  the  mole  and  the  poison  caused 
the  death  of  Diarmad.^ 


JOHN  MORRISON   OF  HARRIS 
Rev.  M.  N.  MuNRO 

It  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  at  any  length  on  the  biographical 
details  of  the  life  of  '  Gobha  na  h-Earradh.'  These  may  be 
found  in  the  introduction  to  Dr.  Henderson's  edition  of  his 
poetical  works.  John  Morrison  died  in  1852,  and  now  most 
or  all  of  his  contemporaries  have  passed  away.  Dr.  Hender- 
son has  done  his  gleaning  of  facts  connected  with  the  poet 
so  thoroughly  and  well  that  there  can  be  little  left  for  others 
to  discover.  But  the  memory  of  this  saintly  man  is  worth 
cherishing.     He  was  undoubtedly  the  greatest  religious  poet 

^  In  Mr.  Thomas  Ford  Hill's  collection  of  Ossianic  Ballads  (the  first  Ossianic 
collection  ever  pubKshed)  contributed  by  him  to  the  Oentleman's  Magazine  in  1782-3, 
and  obtained  from  Alexander  MacNab,  Blacksmith,  Dalmally,  there  is  a  poem  Mar 
Mha/rhhadh  Bran  ('How  Bran  was  killed').  Bran  was  Finn's  favourite  dog  and 
because  he  killed  Gaul's  dog,  Finn  killed  him  and  then  lamented  for  him.  This 
collection  also  contains  the  poem  Mar  Mharbh  Diarmad  an  Tore  Nimhe  (How 
Diarmad  killed  the  poisonous  boar).  Hill  published  his  collection  in  pamphlet  form 
in  1784,  but  it  became  so  scarce  that  in  1872  Mr.  Campbell  of  Islay  could  not  procure 
a  copy.  It  was  published  in  the  Gael  of  1877,  and  in  1878  reprinted  in  pamphlet 
form  and  issued  by  Messrs.  MacLachlan  and  Stewart.  The  MacNicol  MSS.  contain 
an  exact  copy  of  Mar  Mharbhadh  Bran  obtained  from  the  same  source  as  Hill's 
version.  In  Dr.  Cameron's  Reliquiae  Celticae,  vol.  i.  pp.  280  and  340,  there  are  two 
similar  versions  from  the  MacFarlane  and  MacLagan  collections. 


136  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

that  the  Hebrides  has  produced.  My  aim  in  this  paper  is 
to  approach  the  poet's  works  from  the  literary  and  critical 
point  of  view  in  the  endeavour  to  realise  the  individuality  of 
the  man  and  also  the  atmosphere  of  his  surroundings  in  those 
strenuous,  toil-filled  years  that  he  spent  in  Harris,  as  black- 
smith, preacher,  and  poet,  with  but  little  reference  to  the 
ecclesiastical  history  and  the  polemics  of  his  time.  He  was 
a  man  of  great  natural  force  of  character  and  a  religious  poet 
of  the  first  rank.  He  was  a  born  leader  of  men,  and  wher- 
ever his  lot  was  cast  he  could  not  fail  to  be  a  powerful 
influence  either  for  good  or  for  evil. 

One  of  his  contemporaries  said  of  Ian  Gobha  nan  Dan 
in  an  elegy  : — 

Nam  biodh  do  bhuadhan  's  do  gh^ir 

Aig  neach  gun  ghliocas  d'an  r^ir 

Bhiodh  tu  croiseil  do'n  chl^ir  's  do'n  Stkid. 

Had  Morrison  been  born  in  Ireland  some  centuries  back  he 
would  have  been  a  prominent  figure  at  a  time  when  bards 
held  equal  power  and  position  with  the  dignitaries  of  the 
Church.  He  might  even  have  been  a  second  Murrough 
O'Daly,  O'DonneU's  bard,  who  was  the  active  cause  of  no 
less  than  three  wars  in  Ireland,  and  who  latterly  found  a  safe 
asylum  in  the  kingdom  of  the  Isles.  As  it  was,  Ian  Gobha 
had  more  influence  with  the  people  of  Harris  in  the  thirties 
and  forties  than  all  the  ecclesiastics  of  the  island  put 
together.  A  story  is  told  of  him  still  that  reveals  what 
manner  of  man  he  was.  In  the  early  decades  of  last  century 
a  minister  was  about  to  be  settled  in  Harris  by  the  patron  of 
the  district.  Morrison  strongly  disapproved  of  the  selection, 
being  convinced  from  his  knowledge  of  the  man  that  he  had 
not  the  necessary  qualifications  for  his  sacred  office.  How- 
ever, the  ordination  went  on.  The  bard  sat  in  the  church 
making  no  protest.  The  presiding  clergyman  took  the  fact 
of  his  presence  as  a  good  omen  and,  hoping  to  conciliate  the 
bard,  asked  him  to  engage  in  prayer  at  the  close  of  the  service. 
Morrison  did  so,  but  in  the  course  of  his  prayer  took  occasion 


JOHN  MORRISON  OF  HARRIS  137 

to  intercede  for  the  newly  settled  pastor,  desiring  earnestly 
that  he  might  receive  certain  qualifications  for  his  office 
which  he  as  yet  lacl^ed.  The  prayer  was  expressed  in  such 
powerful  and  impressive  Gaelic  that  the  young  minister  took 
alarm  and  immediately  resigned  his  pastorate,  fearing,  with 
good  reason,  that  it  would  be  too  thorny  a  business  for  him 
to  work  alongside  of  Ian  Gobha.  So  the  Harris  folk  still 
say  that  one  prayer  from  their  bard  was  so  effectual  that  it 
drove  the  unwelcome  presentee  out  of  the  island. 

The  evangelical  movement  in  the  Church  of  Scotland 
leavened  all  Harris  as  early  as  1828.  Morrison  identified 
himself  with  it,  and  while  pursuing  his  trade,  which  he 
learned  in  Edinburgh  about  the  time  of  Duncan  Ban's 
death,  he  became  also  a  famous  preacher.  He  could 
hold  great  audiences  in  thrall  by  the  spell  of  his  eloquent 
speech,  and  could  awaken  responsive  emotion  as  the  wind 
sways  the  fields  of  corn.  Dr.  M'Donald  of  Ferintosh  was 
the  chief  formative  influence  in  his  spiritual  life.  During 
the  great  controversy  that  culminated  in  the  Disruption,  the 
poet  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Free  Church.  Some  of  his 
poems  are  polemical  and  contain  some  hard  hitting.  But 
then  hard  hitting  was  the  rule  on  both  sides  in  those  days. 
One  of  his  poems  states  the  case  for  both  parties  in  dialogue 
form  with  great  ability,  though  at  this  distance  of  time,  and 
with  changed  conditions,  the  terms  may  seem  severe. 
Morrison  had  two  sides  to  his  nature.  At  one  time  he  was  'the 
bonnie  fechter,'  with  the  battle-fever  of  his  Norse  ancestry 
in  his  veins,  and  then  again  when  controversy  was  forgotten 
no  man  could  be  more  tender  and  gentle  than  he.  There 
was  no  leaven  of  vindictiveness  or  spite  in  his  character. 
Like  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  that  robust  Hebridean  pilgrim, 
our  bard  was  a  strong,  burly  fellow  who  could  fight  well  on 
occasion  for  a  cause,  careless  of  the  odds  against  him, 
fearless  in  his  convictions  yet  behind  it  all  was  a  massive, 
humorous,  kindly  nature,  most  lovable  to  those  who  knew 
him  well,  always  single-hearted  and  sincere.  In  a  recent 
article  on  Johnson,  Dr.  Robertson  Nicoll  points  out  certain 


/ 


138  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

traits  in  the  character  of  that  remarkable  man  that  curiously 
remind  us  of  Ian  Gobha.  Johnson  possessed  '  great  powers 
of  mind,  combined  with  wit  and  humour,'  was  *  of  a  comba- 
tive disposition,'  and  withal  was  *  a  great  Christian  man  and 
something  of  a  seer  and  a  mystic'  In  his  degree  Morrison 
possessed  the  above  combination  of  remarkable  qualities. 
Johnson  made  little  money  by  his  literary  work,  our  bard 
made  nothing  at  all.  Johnson  had  a  '  great  and  sacred 
affection  for  his  dearly  loved  wife.'  In  the  whole  range  of 
Gaelic  poetry  there  is  not  to  be  found  a  more  touching 
expression  of  sorrow  than  in  Morrison's  '  Marbhrann  d'  a 
ch6ile,'  an  elegy  to  his  wife,  full  of  Christian  resignation,  and 
such  poignant  sorrow  that  even  now  it  can  hardly  be  read 
without  tears.  Her  name  was  Marion  M'Lean,  and  she  died 
in  1829. 

The  total  literary  output  of  the  poet  is  astonishingly 
large.  None  of  our  Gaelic  religious  poets  have  written  so 
much  verse  of  such  uniformly  high  quality,  alike  in  vigour  of 
thought  and  in  beauty  of  literary  form.  He  possessed  a 
vigorous  intellect,  and  his  poems  are  extremely  terse  and 
condensed  in  expression  yet  without  vagueness.  Though 
intellectual  in  their  cast  his  verses  are  full  of  musical 
qualities.  His  sensitive  ear  could  not  tolerate  harshness.  In 
his  early  years  he  was  a  skilled  player  on  the  violin,  and  he 
was  well  acquainted  with  the  secular  poetry  and  music  of  the 
Highlands.  Many  of  his  poems  were  written  for  old  folk- 
tunes,  and  at  least  one  of  his  descriptive  pieces  is  modelled  on 
a  favourite  metre  of  Duncan  Ban.  Martin  said  of  the  Hebri- 
deans  in  1690  that  *  they  have  a  great  genius  for  Music  and 
Mechanics.'  This  is  remarkably  true  of  John  Morrison. 
He  was  an  excellent  mechanic  as  well  as  a  master  of  harmoni- 
ous verse.  In  his  later  years  constant  intercourse  with  his 
minister,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Macintosh  M'Kay,  a  noted  Gaelic 
scholar  in  his  day,  would  be  mutually  helpful.  Dr.  M'Kay 
was  a  man  of  great  ability  and  culture.  He  was  compiler 
to  a  large  extent  of  the  Highland  Society's  Gaelic  Dictionary, 
he  edited  Rob  Donn's  poems,  and  was  Moderator  of  the  Free 


JOHN  MOERISON  OF  HAERIS  139 

Church  Assembly.  He  was  an  uncle  of  George  M'Donald  the 
novelist,  a  fact  not  generally  known. 

An  old  lady  who  knew  Dr.  M'Kay  well  relates  that  on 
one  occasion  while  staying  at  the  manse  of  Tarbert  she  saw 
a  portrait  of  George  M'Donald  in  one  of  the  rooms.  '  This 
is  a  nephew  of  mine,'  said  the  Doctor.  '  He  was  to  have 
been  a  minister,  but  I  am  sorry  to  say  he  has  taken  to  writing 
novels.'  When  Morrison  died  Dr.  M'Kay  wrote  a  sympa- 
thetic obituary  notice  of  him  for  Hugh  Miller's  Witness. 
Dr.  M'Kay  used  to  say  that  in  Harris  he  had  met  the  most 
courteous  and  the  most  pious  man  he  had  ever  fallen  in  with. 
The  former  was  Dr.  M'Gillivray  of  Barra,  brother  of  the 
naturalist,  the  latter  was  John  Morrison.  The  poet  had  an 
excellent  command  of  English,  and  when  on  a  visit  to  Edin- 
burgh, in  1851,  actually  preached  in  Dr.  Candlish's  church 
in  Edinburgh  at  the  request  of  that  eminent  divine,  to  the 
satisfaction  of  a  very  large  audience. 

To  those  who  do  not  know  the  Hebrides  it  is  necessary 
to  say  something  regarding  the  formative  influences  of 
Morrison's  early  environment.  The  people  of  Harris  and 
Lewis,  for  whom  in  the  first  instance  Morrison  wrote  his 
poems  with  little  thought  of  a  wider  public,  were  in  those 
days  a  simple,  primitive,  and  kindly  folk,  affectionate  in 
disposition  and  of  a  deeply  serious  and  religious  cast  of  mind. 
In  the  previous  century  it  was  not  so  ;  scenes  of  violence  and 
excess  were  not  uncommon.  Still  further  back  we  find  the 
usual  story  of  clan  fights  and  bloody  battles,  nameless 
conflicts  of  hardly  more  permanent  interest  than  the  battles 
of  the  kites  and  crows.  But,  on  the  whole,  in  Morrison's 
time  the  people  lived  together  in  amity  and  kindly  fellowship 
and  always  deeply  interested  in  religion. 

In  some  ways  they  remind  one  of  the  Welsh  peasantry,  or 
of  the  Breton  people  of  whom  Anatole  le  Braz  writes  : 
'  For  this  austere  race  religion  is  the  supreme  concern.' 
They  might  also  be  compared  to  the  devout  folk  of  West 
Ireland,  among  whom  Dr.  Hyde  got  so  many  fine  religious 
songs  composed  by  themselves  in  Gaelic.     In  spite  of  the 


140  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

difference  in  creed  there  are  broaxi  and  deep  resemblances  in 
the  religious  spirit  of  the  Celtic  peoples  that  racial  affinity 
helps  to  explain.  It  has  been  well  remarked  that  among  all 
the  Celtic  races  there  is  found  the  'union  of  deep  and  easily 
excited  emotion,  passionate  religious  conviction,  and  vivid 
popular  imagination.'  '  An  austere  race  '  they  might  seem 
to  some  to  be  in  those  days  in  Harris,  but  those  who  knew 
them  intimately  and  sympathetically  would  think  more  of 
the  kindliness  than  the  austerity.  It  was  an  interesting 
stage  in  the  evolution  of  the  Celtic  mind,  a  condition  which 
had  many  excellencies,  but  also  some  accompanying  and 
necessary  but  almost  noble  limitations. 

Among  the  men  of  the  clan  to  which  Morrison  belonged 
there  were  some  whose  lives  were  so  beautiful,  and  whose 
thoughts  were  so  sincere,  that  they  might,  without  ex- 
aggeration, be  said  to  belong  to  the  apostolic  type.  They 
were  saintly  and  lovable  and  gentle  Christians,  and 
Morrison  himself  had  all  these  fine  qualities  with  an  added 
massiveness  of  intellect  and  a  poetic  and  imaginative  power 
that  made  him  pre-eminent  among  them  all. 

They  were  sociable  souls  in  their  plain  homespun,  and 
masters  of  a  charming  art  of  religious  conversation  that  was 
quite  spontaneous  and  free  from  cant.  With  a  light,  sure 
touch  they  could  speak  to  one  another  of  the  most  intimate 
things,  and  they  also  knew  well  how  to  turn  from  grave  to 
gay,  and  relieve  the  tension  with  a  flash  of  humour.  Practi- 
cal Christians  too  they  were  with  all  their  love  of  experi- 
mental and  mystical  theology.  The  writer  remembers  one 
such  dimly,  one  of  God's  gentlemen,  Calum  Caimbeul  of 
Bragar,  saintliest  of  men  ;  still  remembered  for  a  brave  deed 
of  seK-sacrifice. 

Virulent  fever  broke  out  in  the  little  village  one  day, 
bringing  death  to  almost  every  house  where  it  entered.  The 
people  were  paralysed  with  terror,  none  could  be  found  to 
minister  in  the  stricken  homes  to  the  sick  and  the  dying. 
In  some  houses  all  the  inmates  were  ill.  The  frail  old  elder 
rose  up  and  girded  himself,  and  with  perfect  fearlessness 


II 


JOHN  MOERISON  OF  HARRIS  141 

went  round  from  house  to  house,  distributing  daily  to  the 
sick  all  the  milk  his  cows  yielded,  with  a  kind  word  and  a 
prayer  for  each,  until  the  plague  was  stayed.  Though  he 
nursed  some  and  helped  to  bury  others,  neither  himseK  nor 
any  of  his  family  took  the  fever.  His  memory  lives  in  the 
hearts  of  the  people  to  this  day.  Such  men  as  these  were 
Morrison's  friends  and  companions,  and  the  most  appreci- 
ative audience  for  his  poems.  They  lived  remote  from  the 
distributing  centres  of  literature,  and  almost  their  only 
book  was  the  Gaelic  Bible.  Students  of  literature  and 
style  learn  much  from  the  classics  of  Greece  and  Rome : 
these  men,  and  Morrison  especially,  went  to  the  classics  of 
Judea.  Their  minds  were  thus  woven  through  and  through 
with  the  lore  of  the  noblest  book  in  the  world.  It  was  the 
school  that  gave  Ruskin  his  moral  earnestness  and  the  style 
that  gave  him  the  premier  position  of  his  time  as  a  master 
of  EngUsh  prose.  So  it  is  not  a  matter  for  wonder  that 
these  men  who  made  the  noble  Gaelic  version  of  the 
Scriptures  their  daily  and  nightly  companion  should 
become  themselves  ennobled. 

But  it  may  be  asked  were  there  in  this  Arcadian  isle  none 
of  the  other  class,  the  rigid  dogmatist,  the  man  who  has  no 
flexibility  of  mind,  who  is  too  harsh  and  morose  to  be 
lovable  ?  Some  such  there  may  have  been,  but  it  may  be 
said  with  emphasis  that  this  was  not  the  class  that  Morrison 
belonged  to.  Indeed,  in  the  Harris  of  those  days,  and  now, 
men  of  this  type  were  few  in  number.  There  are  critics  of 
Highland  religion  who  fasten  on  to  this  type,  their  pet 
aversion,  and  make  sport  of  their  limitations  and  imperfec- 
tions, but  these  critics  forget  that  there  were  others  of  a 
more  generous  kindly  nature,  of  whom  Morrison  is  the 
finest  example  we  have. 

If  poetry  means  noble  thought  expressed  in  noble 
language  the  works  of  Ian  Gobha  satisfy  the  definition.  It 
may  be  objected  that  since  his  thought  is  just  the  thought  of 
a  certain  Christian  school,  poetically  treated,  the  range  of 
its  appeal  is  limited.     It  seems  to  be  true  that  the  writer  of 


142  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

religious  poetry  works  under  some  disability  from  the  very 
nature  of  his  theme.  The  creative  imagination  cannot  have 
free  play  in  handling  profound  religious  subjects.  Professor 
Goldwin  Smith  says  :  '  The  relations  of  man  with  the  Deity 
transcend  and  repel  poetic  treatment.'  That  may  be  the 
reason  why  hymns  have  rarely  any  very  high  value  when 
judged  by  the  canons  of  pure  poetry. 

Morrison's  religious  poems  will,  for  some,  inspire  respect 
and  interest  rather  than  enthusiasm.  With  such  feelings  men 
may  rise  from  the  study  of  the  work  of  Montgomery,  Co wper, 
or  perhaps  even  of  Milton.  None  the  less  these  names  are 
approved  by  universal  judgment  as  great  poets.  The  general 
opinion  of  all  qualified  to  speak  is  that  Morrison  is  one  of  the 
very  greatest  of  our  Gaelic  religious  poets.  It  must  be 
confessed  that  many  of  his  poems  are  too  full  of  compressed 
reflection  to  be  read  continuously  with  pleasure.  Still,  if 
we  come  to  him  with  receptive  minds,  prepared  to  acquiesce 
with  his  religious  forms  of  expression,  we  shall  gradually 
begin  to  feel  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a  master  mind.  There 
is  something  about  his  verse  that  reminds  one  of  classical 
music  of  the  severer  order  which  has  to  be  heard  several 
times  before  its  chaste  beauty  becomes  evident.  If  creative 
imagination  is  out  of  place  in  such  themes  as  he  treats  of, 
yet  he  has  that  imagination  which  makes  the  invisible  real 
to  us,  and  which  so  justifies  itself.  The  great  recurring  ideas 
in  his  religious  poems  are  the  divine  Love,  and  the  Christian 
experiences  of  the  soul.  His  thoughts  habitually  move  in 
the  region  of  the  supernatural,  in  a  rarer  air  than  that 
breathed  by  ordinary  mortals.  For  those  who  can  taste  it 
there  is  a  perennial  charm  in  his  poetry,  and  as  we  read  the 
impression  grows  that  the  man  himself  was  greater  than  his 
works.  When  he  writes  we  are  never  made  to  feel  that  his 
poetry,  his  literary  skill,  are  ends  in  themselves.  He  was  a 
literary  athlete  if  ever  there  was  one  in  the  North,  and  yet 
he  is  not  deeply  impressed  with  the  importance  of  his  art 
nor  obtrudes  his  own  personality.  As  in  the  case  of  Cowper, 
his  poems  are  to  himself  but  a  means  of  making  religion 


JOHN  MOEMSON  OF  HAERIS  143 

attractive.  Though  indifferent  to  fame,  there  is  no  doubt 
the  practice  of  his  art  when  his  day's  work  at  the  anvil  was 
done,  must  have  been  a  source  of  delight  and  satisfaction  to 
him.  Did  his  thoughts  come  to  him  as  he  swung  the  hammer, 
or  was  it  in  the  hours  of  evening  that  the  glow  of  his  inspira- 
tion and  flow  of  ideas  came  that  carried  him  on  over  pages  of 
manuscript  without  a  break  ?  He  never  gives  us  a  glimpse 
into  the  mechanism  of  his  art,  but  we  can  imagine  him  going 
out  under  the  stars  when  he  finished  that  noble  poem 
'  An  Aire,'  saying  with  Prospero,  '  A  turn  or  two  I  '11 
walk  to  still  my  beating  mind.' 

Independent  of  his  humble  surroundings,  the  bard 
would  in  these  creative  moments  find  a  full  enjoyment. 
'  To  look  through  the  gates  of  the  New  Jerusalem  makes 
cheap  the  splendours  of  London  and  Paris.'  That  he  has 
written  little  nature  poetry  is  matter  for  regret.  We  know  his 
sensitiveness  to  natural  beauty  and  the  charm  of  the  sea, 
from  the  piece  '  An  Cuairt  Chuan.'  This  is  a  perfect  gem  of 
descriptive  poetry.  Had  he  cared  he  could  have  written  of 
the  sea  in  a  manner  that  would  equal  or  excel  the  art  of 
Alex.  M 'Donald.  The  song,  '  Tha  duin'  6g  is  scan  duin' 
agam,'  is  the  most  widely  known  of  his  religious  pieces. 
Dr.  Henderson  says  it  is  still  sung  by  the  Harris  girls  as  a 
waulking  song  !  It  may  have  been  suggested  by  Erskine's 
Gospel  Sonnets,  a  book  much  in  vogue  at  the  time.  But  the 
Gaelic  poem  is  far  finer  than  any  of  Erskine's  verses.  It 
shows  a  genius  for  the  interpretation  of  religious  psychology 
and  is  full  of  convincing  and  passionate  earnestness.  The 
metre  is  very  nearly  that  of  Tennyson's  *  Locksley  Hall.' 
It  is  interesting  to  compare  the  literary  art  of  Morrison  with 
that  of  Buchanan  of  Rannoch,  the  only  religious  poet  of 
the  Highlands  worthy  to  be  ranked  alongside  of  Morrison. 
Morrison  makes  a  more  sparing  use  of  images  than  Buchanan, 
and,  with  superior  metaphysical  gifts,  tends  to  be  abstract 
in  the  form  of  his  thoughts.  Buchanan  is  more  pictorial  in 
style  and  is  fascinated  by  the  sterner  aspects  of  Christianity. 
He  has  affinities  with  Dante,  revels  in  terrific  images  and  has 


144  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

a  gloomy  splendour  of  imagination,  while  Morrison  is  of  a 
sunnier  Johannine  temperament  and  more  frequently  sings 
of  the  inner  experience  of  the  soul,  with  frequent  Biblical 
references.  Buchanan  is  an  Old  Testament  prophet  of  the 
wrath  of  God,  especially  in  his  tremendous  poem  on 
the  Judgment  Day.  The  Rannoch  poet  excels  in  terse, 
epigrammatic  expression  ;  he  has  some  gems  of  thought 
packed  into  two  or  four  lines,  clear  as  a  diamond  and  telling 
instantly  on  the  mind,  and  strokes  of  genius  here  and  there 
that  Morrison  never  equalled.  But  on  the  whole  Morrison 
produced  a  far  greater  bulk  of  fine  poems,  though  he  suffers 
from  a  tendency  to  sermonise  at  times  and  many  of  the  poems 
are  far  too  long.  In  his  great  elegy  on  Dr.  M 'Donald  of 
Ferintosh,  the  *  Apostle  of  the  North,'  he  versifies  the  whole 
round  of  Christian  theology.  Had  he  but  set  himself  to 
write  short  hymns  his  hold  on  posterity  would  have  been 
more  secure  than  it  is  to-day.  He  does  not  trouble  to  prune 
and  concentrate,  but  for  all  that  many  of  his  poems 
breathe  a  heavenly  music  and  are  ablaze  with  beauty. 

He  is  a  consummate  master  of  the  difficult  art  of  Vowel 
Assonance.  Before  the  days  of  the  Norse  invasion  this  form 
of  poetry  had  a  high  development  in  Ireland,  and  it  still  is 
one  of  the  most  distinctive  and  beautiful  features  of  modem 
Gaelic  poetry.  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  imitate  it  in  a  con- 
sonantal language  like  English  except  in  a  halting  and 
mechanical  way. 

In  these  poems  one  or  two  vowel  or  diphthong  sounds  will 
run  through  a  whole  stanza  on  the  accented  syllables  with 
charming  musical  effect  of  contrasts  and  concords.  Then 
in  the  next  stanza  another  vowel  sound  enters  and  passes 
through  the  lines  to  the  end  of  the  stanza,  binding  all 
together  with  a  wonderfully  expressive  and  haunting 
yet  elusive  harmony.  Consonantal  rhyme  is  not  so 
strictly  observed  as  in  English  owing  to  the  soft  and 
liquid  nature  of  Gaelic  consonants.  Yet  all  this  intricate 
word-building  is  done  with  such  art  and  apparent  ease 
that  the  reader's  mind  is  both  satisfied  with  the   music 


JOHN  MOERISON  OF  HARRIS  145 

and  moved  by  the  thoughts  and  ideas.  The  complicated 
vowel  system  of  the  verses  never  shackles  the  march  of  our 
author's  thought  or  leads  to  vagueness  as  it  might  easily  do 
in  less  skilful  hands.  It  is  only  when  the  verses  are  closely 
examined  that  the  wonderful  skill  of  the  craftsman  appears. 
The  reader  is  filled  with  a  new  respect,  not  only  for  the  poet, 
but  for  the  noble  instrument  he  uses  with  such  mastery — the 
Gaelic  language.  A  great  variety  of  metres  are  used  in  his 
works.  The  Iambic  and  Anapaest  measures  are  those 
uhiefly  used  with  an  occasional  poem  in  Trochaic  feet. 
Much  variety  of  individual  feet  occur  in  the  same  poem,  but 
the  stanzas  are  always  uniform,  and  the  number  of  accents 
in  each  line  quite  regular.  Unlike  English  poetry,  the 
majority  of  his  metres  end  the  line  in  a  short  syllable.  Owing 
to  the  Gaelic  rule  of  accent  on  the  first  syllable  of  a  word, 
monosyllables  must  be  chosen  when  the  line  is  to  end  on  a 
long  accent.  This  hampers  the  composer  to  some  ex- 
tent. Some  of  his  Trochaic  measures  remind  one  of 
old  Irish  eighth  century  forms.  The  beautiful  elegy  to  his 
wife,  '  Marbhrann  d'a  cheile,'  is  almost  in  the  ancient 
'  Deibhidh '  metre  as  regards  both  alliteration  and  asson- 
ance, only  the  first  line  of  the  stanza  has  one  short  syllable 
extra  at  the  end.  Only  two  poems  in  Morrison's  works — the 
first  two  in  vol.  i. — have  the  strong  ending  all  through  the 
verses.  Sometimes  one  feels  the  snap  at  the  end  of  the 
line,  the  supernumerary  short  syllable,  to  be  jarring  to  the 
ear  in  long  continued  passages  of  solemn,  contemplative 
poetry,  and  almost  flippant  in  effect.  Buchanan  chose 
the  stately  long  metre  of  the  Psalms  for  some  of  his 
majestic  poetry.  His  poem  on  the  Judgment  Day  can  be 
sung  to  *  Soldau.'  In  English  didactic  poetry  the  strong 
ending  is  almost  universal,  while  in  Gaelic  it  is  compara- 
tively rare.  When  the  long  and  short  ending  occurs  in 
alternate  lines,  as  in  *  An  Aire,'  the  effect  is  better  suited 
to  the  subject.  But  of  course  the  single  or  double 
short  endings  in  Gaelic  poetry  are  very  well  suited 
for  lively  themes.      The  study  of  Gaelic  metres  is  very 

VOL.  VI.  K 


146  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

interesting,  but  our  space  forbids  our  developing  the  subject 
further. 

Morrison  shows  the  marvellous  flexibility  of  the  Gaelic 
language  as  an  instrument  for  the  poet,  whether  his  subject 
be  religious  or  secular.  Whether  the  language  is  equally 
adapted  for  modern  commercial  life  is  another  question  that 
will  not  be  settled  until  Scottish  Gaelic  scholars  face  the 
question  of  technical  terms  with  the  courage  that  Irish 
scholars  are  showing  at  the  present  moment. 

When  we  consider  Morrison's  work  as  a  whole,  we  cannot 
withhold  from  him  the  tribute  of  hearty  admiration.  For 
intellectual  power  and  depth  of  thought  he  has  hardly 
an  equal  among  Gaelic  writers.  While  it  is  true  that 
he  belongs  to  a  special  religious  movement,  identified 
with  the  Free  Church,  more  than  to  the  universal  world 
of  literature,  yet  his  poetry  is  so  musical,  he  has  such 
an  art  of  winning  friends,  that  even  those  who  come  to  him 
solely  from  the  literary  attraction  of  his  mastery  of  Gaelic 
metre  and  verse,  end  by  taking  him  to  their  hearts.  We 
hardly  value  sufficiently  our  Gaelic  religious  poets.  The 
better  Morrison  is  known  in  his  poetry  and  also  in  his  personal 
character  the  more  will  he  be  respected  and  revered.  So 
much  cannot  be  said  for  all  our  secular  poets.  A  mind  that 
could  keep  up  so  prolonged  and  majestic  a  stream  of  original 
and  sublime  poetry  fuU  of  vigour  and  beauty  of  diction, 
deserves  to  be  remembered  with  honour  by  all  Highlanders. 
Remembered  he  will  be  with  sincere  respect,  when  the 
pompous  little  big  men  of  his  own  day  and  ours,  who  strut 
upon  the  stage  filled  with  the  self-importance  of  emptiness 
and  vanity,  will  be  utterly  forgotten. 

Chaucer's  famous  lines  on  the  Parish  Priest  apply  with 
full  force  to  this  saint  of  the  Isles  : 

Christes  lore,  and  the  Apostles  twelve 

He  preached  but  first  he  practised  it  himselve. 


II 


DUGALD  BUCHANAN  147 

DXJGALD  BUCHANAN 

MY  ROMANTIC  INTRODUCTION  TO  HIS  POETRY 

William  Jolly 


After  a  happy  Sunday,  or  Sabbath,  as  Dugald  Buchanan 
would  have  rather  called  it,  Alister  Cameron  and  I  set  out 
for  the  summit  of  Schiehallion.  Going  some  four  miles 
down  the  Tummel,  we  ascended  the  north  slope  from  the  farm 
of  Tempar.  From  there  the  path,  though  rough,  is  clear, 
especially  to  a  mountaineer  like  Cameron,  and  the  ascent 
is  comparatively  easy.  Our  heels  were  light  and  our  hearts 
lighter  ;  and  we  soon  gained  the  crest,  the  centre  knot  on 
the  garlanded  brow  of  the  Fair  Maiden  Mountain.  Unlike 
Milton,  I  shaU  not  attempt  the  impossible,  in  prose  or 
rhyme,  to  describe  the  view  from  this  divine  peak  of  vantage, 
the  rolling  tumult  of  strong  waves  in  crested  Atlantean 
billows,  hollow  glens,  gleaming  lakes,  sinuous  streams,  and 
all  the  glittering  glories  of  the  wondrous  panorama.  I 
have  ascended  since  then  most  of  the  mountains  in  Britain. 
I  have  climbed  Helvellyn  and  his  brother  hills  in  Lake- 
land ;  have  slept  on  Ben  Nevis,  the  truly  Heaven-Kissing 
Ben — as  best  it  signifies  in  Gaelic  ;  have  stood  and  gazed 
with  wonderment  at  the  Jungfrau,  but  Schiehallion  equals 
aU. 

Hutton  and  Maskelyne's  wonderful  weighing  of  the 
world  here  took  place  in  1777.  It  is  a  unique  feature  in 
the  cap  of  the  Maiden  Mountain.  Though  a  pet  name  for 
many  a  Highland  hill,  she  assuredly  and  rightfully  bears 
the  palm  for  both  beauty  of  form  and  this  marvellous 
achievement.  The  peak  is  a  kenspeckle  object  seen  from 
far,  being  visible  and  easily  distinguished  even  by  the 
monarch,  Ben  Nevis  himself,  from  whose  craggy  crown  I 
have  often  dutifully  saluted  his  distant  and  handsome 
daughter,  of  whose  name  another  and  curiously  related 


148  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

meaning  is  the  Fairy  Hill.  When  we  had  sufl&ciently 
realised  this  monumental  problem  and  its  successful 
solution  on  the  very  spot  itself,  we  turned  to  the  wilderness 
of  bens  and  glens  at  our  feet  in  search  of  a  way  to  return. 
Down  below  us,  towards  the  west,  slept  a  snug  sheiling, 
evidently  the  shelter  of  some  shepherd ;  and,  beyond  it, 
wonderful  to  tell,  lay  a  wreath  of  snow,  still  unmelted  in 
August,  which  nestled  in  a  hollow  corrie,  known,  as  my 
companion  told  me,  as  Coire  Chuithe  (Corry-Hooie),  the 
Corrie  of  the  Snow  Wreath,  in  old  Gaelic  ;  the  very  name 
proving  at  once  its  existence  in  ancient  days  and  its  perma- 
nence, which  caught  the  keen  notice  of  the  Celts  and  gained 
its  title  to  distinction.  After  a  glorious  lunch,  towards 
these  two  points  we  bent  our  eager  steps.  The  descent 
was  steep  and  trying,  especially  to  an  unaccustomed 
Sassenach,  for  we  took  the  hill  straight  down. 

Soon  we  reached  the  sheiling  or  dirigh  {ahree),  as 
it  is  called  in  the  native  tongue,  set  down  there  alone 
in  the  profoundest  of  solitudes.  This  gave  me  my  first 
feeling,  but  certainly  not  the  last  by  many  hundred  times, 
of  absolutely  pure  solitariness.  It  thrilled  us  to  the  soul ; 
and  entered  into  my  blood  with  an  intensity  I  still  vividly 
recall  and  which  death  only  can  destroy. 

I  was  certainly  fortunate,  thus  early  in  life,  and  in  the 
Highlands,  where  I  was  fated  to  spend  the  best  of  my  years, 
to  obtain  such  typical  and  valuable  experiences,  in  such 
varied  aspects  as  during  these  memorable  days  in  Rannoch. 

The  door  of  the  hut  was  open  to  all  comers,  human  or 
animal,  and  we  gladly  entered.  We  found  it  dry  and  snug, 
with  one  chair,  one  small  home-made  table,  and  a  couch  of 
heather  on  one  side  of  the  fireplace.  Near  a  small  window,  in 
a  hole  in  the  waU,  lay  three  books,  which  we  examined  with 
interest.  We  found  them  to  be  the  strangest  of  mixtures — 
the  inevitable  Bible,  a  convincing  tribute  to  the  religiosity 
of  the  Celts  and  of  their  pastoral  representative  here,  and 
Madeline  Smith's  Trial,  then  lately  decided.  But  to  us, 
strangest  of  all,  there  lay  a  single  volume  of  Dr.  Roger's 


DUGALD  BUCHANAN  149 

Scottish  Poets,  a  pretty  proof  of  the  Scot's  love  of  poetry,  the 
three  volumes  rightly  representing  Religion,  Poesy,  and 
Humanity — a  not  unworthy  trinity  and  epitome  of  the 
national  character,  are  they  not  ?  The  Poets  we  perused 
with  avidity,  as  we  rested  by  the  burnside,  and  there — 
who  could  have  predicted  it  ? — we  found,  at  the  end, 
translations  from  the  Gaelic  Muse,  and  among  these,  from 
Dugald  Buchanan's  poetry,  which  we  had  sought  in  vain 
the  night  before  at  Kinloch  !  With  intense  surprise  and 
keenest  zest,  we  read  aloud  the  Gaelic  specimens  and  much 
more,  which  tasted  curiously  sweet  and  delightfully  ap- 
propriate to  the  situation — away  there  alone  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  old  Caledonian  hills,  by  that  lonely  shelling, 
soothed  by  the  murmuring  stream,  in  that  inexpressible 
solitude,  on  the  skirts  of  Schiehallion !  Though  nigh 
half  a  century  ago,  it  seems  but  as  yesterday  since  we  sat 
together  there  ;  and  the  very  rustle  of  the  leaves  in  the 
rising  breeze,  and  the  glory  of  that  gathering  gloaming  in 
that  far-off  glen,  are  as  clear  to  that  eye  '  that  is  the  bliss 
of  solitude,'  as  last  night's  memories,  and  yesterday's 
experiences. 

After  this  unexpected  and  charming  literary  interlude, 
and  after  bathing  our  weary  feet  in  the  burn,  we  set  out 
once  more  to  clamber  to  the  elevated  chamber  that  hid 
the  Snow  Wreath.  This  we  soon  reached  after  a  severe 
scramble  ;  and  there  we  slid  on  its  crystalline  surface  and 
threw  snowballs  at  each  other  till  we  were  tired,  in  the  middle 
of  August !  This  Wreath,  it  seems,  is  perennial,  being  so 
set  in  that  Corrie  towards  the  north  that  the  sun's  rays 
cannot  reach  it,  and  the  snow  there  has  never  melted  away, 
a  pocket  specimen  of  eternal  snows  and  Alpine  conditions. 
Of  such  curious  patches  there  are  several  in  the  Highlands  ; 
and  on  one  property  the  tenure  is  dependent  on  the  con- 
tinuous existence  of  the  wintry  Wreath  ! 

But  night  hastened,  while  we  willingly  lagged  in  highest 
health  and  hilarity  ;  and  after  consuming  the  last  morsel 
of  what  now  seemed  a  too  limited  luncheon,  we  hastened. 


150  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

footsore  but  unfatigued,  in  that  exhilarating  air,  by  Inver- 
hadden  to  Kinloch,  where  we  slept  the  sleep  that  knew 
no  waking,  till  roused  once  more  to  a  new  day. 


CONN,  SON  OF  THE  RED 

(An  Ossianic  Tale) 
Donald  A.  Mackenzie 

The  Fians  sojourned  by  the  shore 
Of  comely  Cromarty,  and  o'er 
The  wooded  hill  pursued  the  chase 
With  ardour.     'Twas  a  full  moon's  space 
Ere  Beltane's  rites  would  be  begun 
With  homage  to  the  rising  sun, 
Ere  to  the  spirits  of  the  dead 
Would  sacrificial  blood  be  shed 
In  yon  green  grove  of  Navity — 
AVhen  Conn  came  over  the  Eastern  Sea 
His  heart  a-flame  with  vengeful  ire 
To  seek  for  Goll  who  slew  his  sire, 
When  he  was  seven  years  old. 

Finn  saw 
In  dreams,  ere  yet  he  came,  with  awe 
The  Red  One's  son  so  fierce  and  bold 
In  combat  with  his  hero  old — 
The  king-like  Goll,  of  valorous  might, 
A  stormy  billow  in  the  fight 
No  foe  could  e'er  withstand. 

He  knew 
The  strange  ship  bore  brave  Conn,  and  blew 
Clear  on  his  horn  the  Warning  Call, 
And  round  him  thronged  the  Fians  all 
With  wond'ring  gaze. 

The  sun  drew  nigh 
The  bal-fires  of  the  evening  sky 
And  faggot-clouds,  with  blood-red  glare, 
Caught  flame,  and  in  the  radiant  air 
Lone  Wyvis  like  a  jewel  shone — 
While  all  the  Fians  gazed  on  Conn. 


CONN,  SON  OF  THE  RED  151 

For,  stooping  on  the  high  Look-Out, 
They  watched  the  ship  that  tacked  about, 
Now  slant  across  the  firth,  and  now 
Laid  bare  below  the  cliflF's  broad  brow. 
And  heaving  on  a  billowy  steep, 
Like  to  a  monster  of  the  deep 
That  wallowed,  labouring  in  pain — 
And  Conn  stared  back  with  cold  disdain. 

Pond'ring,  he  sat  alone  behind 
The  broad  sail  swallowing  the  wind. 
As  o'er  the  hollowing  waves  that  leapt 
And  snarled  with  foaming  lips,  and  swept 
Around  the  bows  in  querulous  fray. 
And  tossed  in  curves  of  drenching  spray, 
The  belching  ship  with  ardour  drove ; 
Then  like  a  lordly  elk  that  strove 
Amid  the  hounds,  and,  charging,  rent 
The  pack  asunder  as  it  went. 
It  bore  round  and  in  beauty  sprang — 
The  sea-wind  through  the  cordage  sang 
With  high  and  wintry  merriment 
That  stirred  the  heart  of  Conn,  intent 
On  vengeance,  and  for  battle  keen— 
So  hard,  so  steadfast  and  serene. 

Then  Ossian,  sweet  of  speech,  spake  low 
With  musing  eyes  upon  the  foe, 
'  Is  Conn  more  noble  than  The  Red 
Whom  Goll  in  combat  vanquished  1 ' 
'  The  Red  was  fiercer,'  Conan  cried — 
'  Nay,  Conn  is  nobler,'  Finn  replied, 
'  More  comely,  stalwart,  mightier  far — 
What  sayest  thou,  Goll,  my  man  of  war  1 ' 
Then  Goll  made  answer  on  the  steep, 
Nor  turned  his  sullen  gaze  and  deep — 
'  His  equal  never  came  before 
Across  the  seas  to  Alban  shore — 
And  never  have  I  peered  upon 
A  nobler,  mightier  man  than  Conn.' 

The  ship  flew  sea-ward,  tacking  wide. 
Contending  with  the  wind  and  tide ; 
And  when  upon  the  broad  stream's  track 
It  baffled  hung,  or  drifted  back. 


152  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

With  grunt  and  shriek  like  battling  boars, 
The  shock  and  swing  of  bladed  oars 
Came  sounding  o'er  the  sea. 

The  dusk 
Grew  round  the  twilight  like  a  husk 
That  holds  a  kernel  choice,  and  keen 
Cold  stars  impaled  the  sky  serene. 
When  Conn's  ship  through  the  slackening  tide 
Drew  round  the  wistful  bay  and  wide, 
Behind  the  headlands  high  that  snout 
The  seas  like  giant  whales,  and  spout 
The  salt  foam  high  and  loud.  .  .  . 

Then  sighed 
The  gasping  men  who  all  day  plied 
Their  oars  in  plunging  seas,  with  hands 
Grown  stiflF,  and  arms  like  twisted  bands 
Drawn  numbly  as  they  rose  outspent 
And  staggering  from  their  benches  went  .  .  . 
The  sail  flapped  quarrelling,  and  drank 
The  wind  in  broken  gasps,  and  sank 
With  sullen  pride  upon  the  boards, 
And  smote  the  mast  and  shook  the  cords. 

Darkly  loomed  that  alien  land. 
And  darkly  lowered  the  Fian  band. 
For,  hovering  on  the  shoreland  grey. 
The  ship  they  followed  round  the  bay. 
Nor  sought  the  sheltering  woods  until 
The  shadows  folded  o'er  the  hill 
Full  heavily,  and  night  fell  blind. 
And  laid  its  spell  upon  the  wind. 

The  swelling  waters  sank  with  sip 
And  hollow  gurgle  round  the  ship ; 
The  long  mast  rocked  against  the  dim 
Soft  heaven  above  the  headland's  rim. 

But  while  the  seamen  crouched  to  sleep. 

Conn  sat  alone  in  reverie  deep, 

And  saw  before  him  in  a  maze 

The  mute  procession  of  his  days 

In  gloom  and  glamour  wending  fast — 

His  heart  a-hungering  for  the  past — 


CONN,  SON  OF  THE  RED  153 

Again  he  leapt  a  tender  boy 
To  greet  his  sire  with  eager  joy, 
When  he  came  over  the  wide  North  Sea 
Enriciied  with  spoils  of  victory — 
Then  heavily  loomed  that  fateful  morn 
When  tidings  of  his  fall  were  borne 
From  Alban  shore  .  .  .  Again  he  saw 
The  youth  who  went  alone  with  awe 
To  swear  the  avenging  oath  before 
The  smoking  altar,  red  with  gore.  .  .  . 

Ah  !  strange  to  him  it  seemed  to  be 

That  hour  was  drawing  nigh  when  he 

Would  vengeance  take  .  .  .  And  still  more  strange — 

0  sorrow ! — it  would  bring  no  change — 

Let  blood  for  blood  be  spilled,  and  life 

For  life  be  taken  in  fierce  strife — 

'Twill  ne'er  recall  the  life  long  sped 

Or  break  the  silence  of  the  dead. 

But  when  he  heard  his  mother's  wail 
Once  more,  uplifted  on  the  gale, 
Moaning  The  Red,  who  ne'er  returned — 
His  cheeks  with  sudden  passion  burned ; 
And  darkly  frowned  that  valiant  man, 
As  through  his  quivering  body  ran 
The  lightnings  of  impelling  ire. 
And  impulses  of  fierce  desire. 
That  surged  with  a  consuming  hate 
Against  a  world  made  desolate. 
Unceasing  and  unreconciled, 
And  ever  clamouring  .  .  .  like  wild, 
Dark-deeded  waves  that  stun  the  shore, 
And  through  the  anguished  twilight  roar 
The  hungry  passions  of  the  wide 
And  gluttonous  deep  unsatisfied. 


The  shredding  dawn  in  beauty  spread 
Its  shafts  of  splendour,  golden-red, 
High  over  the  eastern  heaven,  and  broke 
Through  flaking  clouds,  in  silvern  smoke, 
That  burst  a-flame,  and  fold  o'er  fold. 
Let  loose  their  oozing  floods  of  gold. 
Splashed  over  the  foamless  deep  that  lay 
Tremulous  and  clear.    In  fiery  play 


154  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

The  rippling  beams  that  swept  between 
The  sea-cleft  Sutor  crags  serene, 
Broke  quivering  where  the  waters  bore 
The  soft  reflection  of  the  shore. 

The  pipes  of  morn  were  sounding  shrill 
Through  budding  woods  on  plain  and  hill, 
And  stirred  the  air  with  song  to  wake 
The  sweet-toned  birds  within  the  brake. 

The  Fians  from  their  sheilings  came 
With  offerings  to  the  god  a-flame, 
And  round  them  thrice  they  sun-wise  went, 
Then,  naked-kneed,  in  silence  bent 
Beside  the  pillar-stones  ... 

But  now 
Brave  Conn  upon  the  ship's  high  prow 
Hath  raised  his  burnished  blade  on  high, 
And  calls  on  Woden  and  on  Tigh, 
With  boldness,  to  avenge  the  death 
Of  his  great  sire.  ...     In  one  deep  breath 
He  drains  the  hero's  draught  that  burns 
With  valour  of  the  gods,  then  turns 
His  long-sought  foe  to  meet.  .  .  .     Great  Conn 
Sweeps,  stooping  in  a  boat,  alone, 
Shoreward,  with  rapid  blades  and  bright 
That  shower  the  foam-rain  pearly  white. 
And  rip  the  waters,  bending  lithe, 
In  hollowing  swirls  that  hiss  and  writhe 
Like  adders,  ere  they  dart  away, 
Bright-spotted  with  the  flakes  of  spray. 

When,  furrowing  the  sand,  he  drew 

His  boat  the  shallowing  waters  through — 

A  giant  he  in  stature  rose 

Straight  as  a  mast  before  his  foes. 

With  head  thrown  high,  and  shoulders  wide 

And  level,  and  set  back  with  pride  ; 

His  bared  and  supple  arms  were  long 

As  shapely  oars ;  firm  as  a  thong 

His  right  hand  grasped  his  gleaming  blade 

Gold-hilted,  and  of  keen  bronze  made 

In  leafen  shape. 

With  stately  stride 
He  crossed  the  level  sands  and  wide,    . 


CONN,  SON  OF  THE  EED  155 

Then  on  his  shield  the  challenge  gave— 
His  broad  sword  thund'ring  like  a  wave— 
For  single  combat.  .  .  . 


Red  as  gold 
His  locks  upon  his  shoulders  rolled ; 
A  brazen  helmet  on  his  head 
Flashed  fire  :  his  cheeks  were  white  and  red ; 
And  all  the  Fians  watched  with  awe 
That  hero  young  with  knotted  jaw, 
Whose  eyes,  set  deep,  and  blue  and  hard 
Surveyed  their  ranks  with  cold  regard ; 
While  his  broad  forehead,  seamed  with  care. 
Drooped  shadowily ;  his  eyebrows  fair 
Were  sloping  sideways  o'er  his  eyes 
With  pond'ring  o'er  the  mysteries. 

The  eyes  of  all  the  Fians  sought 

Heroic  Goll,  whose  face  was  wrought 

With  lines  of  deep,  perplexing  thought ; 

For,  gazing  on  the  valiant  Conn, 

He  mourned  that  his  own  youth  had  gone, 

When  brave,  and  fierce,  and  bold,  he  shed 

The  life-blood  of  the  boastful  Red 

Whom  none  save  he  would  meet  .  .  .  He  heard 

The  challenge,  and  nor  spake,  nor  stirred, 

Nor  feared  .  .  .  His  heart  grown  old,  when  hate 

And  lust  of  glory  satiate. 

Took  secret  pride  in  Conn,  and  shared 

The  kinship  of  the  brave.  .  .  . 

Who  dared 
To  meet  the  Viking  bold,  if  he. 
The  succour  of  the  band,  should  be 
Found  faltering  or  in  despair, 
Until  that  day  the  Fians  ne'er 
Of  one  man  had  such  fear  .  .  .  Old  Goll 
Sat  musing  on  a  grassy  knoll 
They  deemed  he  shared  their  dread  .  .  .  Not  so 
Wise  Finn  who  spake  forth  firm  and  slow — 
'  Goll,  son  of  Morna,  peerless  man. 
The  keen  desire  of  every  clan, 
Far-famed  for  many  a  valiant  deed. 
Strong  hero  in  the  time  of  need — 


156  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

I  vaunt  not  Conn,  nor  deem  that  thou 
Dost  falter  save  with  meekness  now — 
But  why  should'st  thou  not  take  the  head 
Of  this  bold  youth,  as  of  The  Red, 
His  sire,  in  other  days  V 

Goll  spake : — 
*  0  noble  Finn,  for  thy  sweet  sake 
Mine  arms  I  'd  seize  with  ready  hand, 
Although,  to  answer  thy  command. 
My  blood  to  its  last  drop  were  spilled — 
By  Crom  !  were  all  the  Fians  killed. 
My  sword  would  never  fail  to  be 
A  strong  defence  to  succour  thee,' 

Upon  his  hard  right  arm  with  haste 

His  crooked  and  pointed  shield  he  braced. 

He  clutched  his  sword  in  his  left  hand — 

While  round  the  hero  of  the  band 

The  Fian  warriors  pressed,  and  praised 

His  valour  .  .  .  Mute  was  Goll  .  .  .  They  raised, 

Smiting  their  hands,  the  battle  cry 

To  urge  him  on  to  victory. 

Then  one-eyed  Goll  went  forth  alone  .  .  . 

His  face  was  like  a  mountain  stone — 

Cold,  hard  and  grey ;  his  deep-drawn  breath 

Came  heavily  like  a  man  nigh  death. 

But  his  hard  mouth,  with  lips  drawn  thin. 

Deep-sunken  in  his  wrinkled  skin. 

Was  cunningly  crooked  :  his  hair  was  white, 

On  his  bald  forehead  gleamed  a  bright 

And  livid  scar  that  Conn's  great  sire 

Had  cloven  when  their  swords  struck  fire — 

Burly  and  dauntless,  full  of  might. 

Old  Goll  went  humbly  forth  to  fight 

With  arrogant  Conn  ...  It  seemed  The  Red 

In  greater  might  was  from  the  dead 

Restored  in  his  fierce  son.  .  .  . 

A  deep, 
Swift  silence  fell  like  sudden  sleep 
On  all  the  Fians  waiting  there 
In  sharp  suspense  and  half  despair.  .  .  . 
The  morn  was  still.     A  skylark  hung 
In  mid-air  fluttering,  and  sung 


I 


CONN,  SON  OF  THE  EED  157 

A  lullaby  that  grew  more  sweet 
Amid  the  stillness,  in  the  heat 
And  splendour  of  the  sun  :  the  lisp 
Of  faint  wind  in  the  herbage  crisp 
Went  past  them :  and  around  the  bare 
And  foam-striped  sand-banks  gleaming  fair 
The  faintly -panting  waves  were  cast 
By  the  wan  deep,  fatigued  and  vast. 

0  great  was  Conn  in  that  dread  hour  ! 
And  all  the  Fians  feared  his  power.  .  .  . 
And  watched,  as  in  a  darksome  dream. 
The  warriors  meet.  .  .  .  They  saw  the  gleam 
Of  swift-uplifted  swords,  and  then 
A  breathless  moment  came,  as  when 
The  lithe  and  living  lightning's  flash 
Makes  pause,  until  the  thunder's  crash 
Is  splintered  through  the  air. 

Loud  o'er 
The  blue  sea  and  the  shining  shore 
Broke  forth  the  crash  of  arms  .  .  .  The  roll 
Of  Conn's  fierce  blows,  that  baffled  Goll, 
On  sword  and  shield  resounding  rang, 
While  that  old  warrior  stooped,  and  sprang 
Sideways,  and  swerved,  or  backward  leapt, 
As  swiftly  as  the  bronze-blade  swept 
Above  him  and  around.  .  .  .  He  swayed 
Stumbling,  but  rose.  .  .  .  But  though  his  blade 
Was  ever  nimble  to  defend, 
The  Fians  feared  the  fight  would  end 
In  victory  for  Conn. 

....  'Twas  like 
As  when  an  eagle  swoops  to  strike, 
But  swerves  with  flutt'ring  wings,  as  nigh 
Its  head  a  javelin  gleams.  ...  A  cry, 
That  banished  fear  of  Conn's  fierce  blows, 
From  out  the  Fian  ranks  arose, 
As  like  a  plumed  reed  in  a  gust 
Goll  suddenly  stooped  ...  A  deadly  thrust, 
That  drew  the  first  blood  in  the  fray, 
He  darting  gave.  .  .  .  With  quick  dismay 
The  valiant  Conn  drew  back.  .  . 

Again 
He  leapt  at  Goll,  but  sought  in  vain 


158  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

To  blind  him  with  his  blows  that  fell 

Like  snow-flakes  on  a  sullen  well — 

For  Goll  was  calm,  while  great  Conn  raged, 

As  hour  by  hour  the  conflict  waged — 

He  was  a  blast-defying  tree — 

A  crag  that  spurned  a  furious  sea — 

And  all  the  Fians  with  one  mind 

Set  firm  their  faith  in  Goll. 

The  wind 
Rose  like  a  startled  bird  from  out 
The  heather  at  the  huntsman's  shout 
In  swift  and  blust'ring  flight.  ...  At  noon 
The  sun  rolled  in  a  cloudy  swoon 
Dimly,  and  over  the  swelling  deep 
Gust  followed  gust  with  shadowy  sweep ; 
And  waves  that  streamed  their  snowy  locks 
Were  tossing  high  against  the  rocks 
Seaward ;  while  round  the  sands  ebbed  wide, 
Scrambled  the  fierce,  devouring  tide. 

Oh,  Conn  was  like  a  hound  at  morn 
That  springs  upon  an  elk  forlorn 
Among  the  hills.     He  was  a  proud 
Cascade  that  leaps  a  cliff  with  loud, 
Unspending  fall  ...  So  fierce,  so  fair 
Was  arrogant  Conn ;  but  Goll  fought  there 
Keen-eyed,  with  ready  guard,  at  bay — 
He  was  a  boar  in  that  fierce  fray. 

The  waves  were  humbled  on  the  shore 

And  silent  fell,  amid  the  roar 

And  crash  of  battle  .  .  .  Mute  and  still 

The  Fians  watched,  while  on  the  hill 

The  little  elves  came  out  and  gazed 

To  be  amused,  .  .  .  and  were  amazed  .  .  . 

They  saw  upon  the  shrinking  sands 

The  warriors  with  restless  hands 

And  busy  blades  .  .  .  with  shields  that  rose 

To  buffet  the  unceasing  blows ; 

They  saw  before  the  rising  flood 

The  flash  of  fire,  the  flash  of  blood. 

And  watched  the  men  with  panting  breath 

Striving  to  be  the  slaves  of  Death — 

Now  darting  wide,  now  swerving  round, 

Now  clashed  together  in  a  bound, 


CONN,  SON  OF  THE  EED  159 

With  splitting  swords  that  smote  so  fast 
As  hour  by  hour  unheeded  past. 

The  sands  were  torn,  and  tossed  like  spray- 
Before  the  whirlwind  of  the  fray, 
That  waged  in  fury  till  the  sun 
Sank,  and  the  day's  last  loops  were  spun — 
Then  terrible  was  Goll !  .  .  .  He  rose 
A  tempest  of  increasing  blows — 
More  furious  and  fast,  as  dim 
Uncertain  twilight  fell  .  .  .  More  grim 
And  great  he  grew  as,  looming  large. 
He  fought,  and  pressing  to  the  marge 
Of  ocean,  he  o'erpowered  and  drave 
The  Viking  hero  back,  till  wave, 
O'er  ready  wave,  that  hurried  fleet. 
Snuffled  and  snarled  about  their  feet. 

Then  with  a  mighty  shout  that  made 
The  rocks  around  him  ring,  his  blade 
Swept  like  a  flash  of  fire  to  smite 
The  last  fell  blow  in  that  fierce  fight — 
So  great  Conn  perished  like  The  Red 
By  Goll's  left  hand  :  his  life-blood  spread 
Over  the  quenching  sands  where  rolled 
His  head  entwined  with  locks  of  gold. 

Then  passed  like  thunder  o'er  the  sea 
The  Fians  shout  of  victory  ; 
And  trembling  on  the  tossing  ships 
The  Vikings  heard  with  voiceless  lips, 
And  dim,  despairing  eyes  .  .  .  Alone 
Stood  Goll,  and,  like  a  silent  stone 
Bulking  upon  a  ben-side  bare, 
He  bent  above  the  hero  fair — 
Remembering  the  mighty  Red, 
And  wondering  that  Conn  lay  dead. 


160  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

A  NEW  SOLUTION  OF  THE  FAIRY  PROBLEM 

David  MacRitchie 

The  traditions  relating  to  the  people  comprehensively 
although  somewhat  vaguely  included  under  the  denomina- 
tion '  fairy  '  have  been  much  discussed  during  the  past  two 
or  three  generations,  and  the  cause  of  the  existence  of  such 
traditions  has  been  variously  explained.  A  new  solution  of 
the  problem — new,  at  any  rate,  in  respect  that  its  exponent 
is  a  modern  man  of  scholarly  attainments — is  now  offered 
to  us  by  Mr.  W.  Y.  Evans  Wentz,  A.M.,  of  Stanford  Uni- 
versity, California,  who  is  also  a  member  of  Jesus  College, 
Oxford.  These  two  qualifications  indicate  pretty  clearly 
that  his  outlook  is  far  from  restricted,  and  this  inference  is 
further  strengthened  when  one  learns  that  the  volume  of 
fully  three  hundred  pages  in  which  he  sets  forth  his  opinions 
was  published  at  Rennes  (Imprimerie  Oberthur,  1909),  at 
the  close  of  a  residence  of  some  months  in  Brittany,  where 
he  had  been  investigating  the  Breton  forms  of  the  beliefs 
in  question.  The  result  of  all  his  studies  may  be  gleaned 
from  the  title  which  he  has  given  to  his  book :  The  Fairy- 
Faith  in  Celtic  Countries  :  Its  Psychical  Origin  and  Nature, 
A  number  of  the  readers  of  the  Celtic  Review,  including 
the  present  writer,  have  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  Mr. 
Wentz  while  he  was  engaged  in  his  researches  in  various 
parts  of  Celtica,  and  all  of  these  can  testify  to  the  ardour  with 
which  he  has  followed  up  his  enquiry,  and  his  manifest 
desire  to  consider  the  evidence  before  him  in  the  most 
judicial  and  impartial  fashion.  That  he  has  gone  about  his 
work  in  a  very  thorough  way  is  evident.  His  Bibliographi- 
cal Index  contains  the  names  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-six 
books  and  papers  from  which  he  h£is  derived  information, 
and  this  does  not  exhaust  his  list.  But  even  more  important, 
because  it  denotes  original  enquiry  by  a  mind  previously 


A  NEW  SOLUTION  OF  THE  FAIRY  PROBLEM    161 


»»■ 


free  from  bias,  has  been  the  investigation  which  he  has 
personally  carried  out.     He  thus  explains  his  method  in  the 
ntroduction  to  his  book  : — 

'  In  June  1908,  after  a  year's  preparatory  work  in  things 
Celtic  under  the  direction  of  the  Oxford  Professor  of  Celtic, 
Sir  John  Rhys,  I  began  to  travel  and  to  collect  material  at 
first-hand  from  the  people  who  have  shaped  and  who  still 
keep  alive  the  Fairy-Faith  in  Wales,  Ireland,  Scotland,  and 
Brittany.  .  .  .  And  with  all  this  came  the  shaping  of  my 
own  opinions  ;  for  when  I  set  out  from  Oxford  in  June,  I 
had  no  certain  nor  any  very  clear  ideas  as  to  what  fairies 
are,  nor  why  there  should  be  belief  in  them.  By  November 
I  found  myself  committed  to  the  Psychical  Theory,  which  I 
am  herein  setting  forth.' 

Before  beginning  to  define  his  own  position,  Mr.  Wentz 
deals  briefly  with  certain  theories  which  seem  to  him 
unsatisfactory.  His  observations  in  this  connection  may 
be  briefly  summarized  : — 

'  We  make  continual  reference  throughout  this  study  to  a 
Psychical  Theory  of  the  origin  of  the  Celtic  Fairy-Faith,  and  it  is  our 
purpose  to  demonstrate  this  theory  as  the  root  theory  which  includes 
or  absorbs  the  four  theories  already  advanced  to  account  for  the 
beUef  in  fairies. 

'  The  first  of  these  may  be  called  the  NaturaHstic  Theory,  which 
is,  that  in  ancient  and  modem  times  man's  belief  in  gods,  spirits,  or 
fairies  has  been  the  direct  results  of  his  attempts  to  explain  or  to 
rationahze  natural  phenomena. 

'  The  second  theory  may  be  called  the  Pygmy  Theory,  which 
Mr.  David  MacRitchie,  who  is  definitely  committed  to  it,  has  so 
clearly  set  forth  in  his  well-known  work  entitled  The  Testimony  of 
Tradition.  This  theory  is  that  the  whole  fairy-beUef  has  grown  up 
out  of  a  folk-memory  of  an  actual  pygmy  race.  This  race  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  a  very  early,  prehistoric,  probably  Mongolian 
race,  which  inhabited  the  British  Islands  and  many  parts  of  Conti- 
nental Europe.  When  the  Celtic  nations  appeared,  these  pygmies 
were  driven  into  mountain-fastnesses  and  into  the  most  inaccessible 
places,  where  a  few  of  them  may  have  survived  until  comparatively 
historical  times.  Sir  John  Rhys  of  Oxford,  strongly  inchned  to  the 
same  theory,  says  this  :  "  The  key  to  the  fairy  idea  is  that  there  was 
VOL.  VI.  L 


162  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

once  a  real  race  of  people  to  whom  all  kinds  of  attributes,  possible 
and  impossible,  have  been  given  in  the  course  of  uncounted  centuries 
of  story- telling  by  races  endowed  with  a  Hvely  imagination." 

'  The  Druid  Theory  to  account  for  fairies  is  less  widespread.  It 
is  that  the  folk-memory  of  the  Druids  and  their  magical  practices  is 
alone  responsible  for  the  Fairy-Faith.  The  first  suggestion  of  this 
theory  seems  to  have  been  made  by  Patrick  Graham,  in  his  Sketches 
Descriptive  of  Picturesque  Scenery  on  the  Southern  Confines  of  Perth- 
shire, published  in  1806.  [Slightly  earlier  is  the  Rev.  Dr.  Cririe's 
reference  in  his  Scottish  Scenery,  London,  1803,  pp.  347-8.]  Alfred 
Maury  in  Les  Fees  du  Moyen-Age,  published  in  1843,  at  Paris,  appears 
to  have  made  Uberal  use  of  Patrick  Graham's  suggestions  in  setting 
up  his  theory  that  the  fees  or  fairy-women  of  the  Middle  Ages  are 
due  to  a  folk-memory  of  druidesses.  ...  As  in  the  case  of  the 
Pygmy  Theory,  we  maintain  that  the  Druid  Theory  also  is  a  partial 
and  inadequate  one. 

*  The  fourth  theory,  the  Mythological  Theory,  is  of  very  great 
importance.  It  is  that  fairies  are  the  diminished  figures  of  the  old 
pagan  divinities  of  the  early  Celts  ;  and  many  modem  authorities  on 
Celtic  mythology  and  folk-lore  hold  it.  To  us  the  theory  is  an 
acceptable  one  so  far  as  it  goes.  But  it  is  not  adequate  in  itself  nor 
is  it  the  root  theory,  because  a  befief  in  gods  and  goddesses  must  in 
turn  be  explained  ;  and  in  making  this  explanation  we  arrive  at 
the  Psychical  Theory,  which  this  study — perhaps  the  first  one  of  its 
kind — attempts  to  demonstrate.' 

Deferring  to  a  later  page  a  consideration  of  the  theory 
with  which  Mr.  Wentz  has,  with  good  reason,  associated 
my  name,  I  shall  proceed  to  make  his  own  position  as  clear 
as  it  is  possible  to  do  in  a  condensed  form. 

'  The  new  psychology  or  psychical  research  has  been  forced  to 
admit — if  only  as  a  working  hypothesis — the  possibihty  of  invisible 
inteUigences  or  entities  able  to  influence  man  and  nature.'  This 
observation  (p.  xvii)  gives  the  keynote  to  his  argument.  *  Most  of  the 
evidence  points  so  much  in  one  direction,'  he  further  states  (p.  12), 
'  that  the  only  verdict  which  seems  reasonable  is  that  the  origin  of 
the  Fairy-Faith  is  psychical ;  that  is  to  say,  that  fairyland  is  a  state 
or  condition,  realm  or  place,  very  much  Uke,  if  not  the  same  as,  that 
wherein  civilized  and  uncivilized  men  equally  locate  the  souls  of  the 
dead,  in  company  with  other  invisibles  such  as  gods,  daemons,  and  all 
sorts  of  good  and  bad  spirits.     As  a  premise,  which  perhaps  cannot  be 


A  NEW  SOLUTION  OF  THE  FAIEY  PROBLEM     163 

as  scientifically  proven  as  we  should  like  it  to  be,  let  us  go  even  further, 
and  say  that  fairyland,  being  thought  of  as  an  invisible  world  within 
which  the  visible  world  is  immersed  as  an  island  in  an  unexplored 
ocean,  actually  exists,  amd  that  it  is  peopled  by  more  species  of  living 
beings  than  this  world,  because  incomparably  more  vast  and  varied  in 
its  possibilities.' 

Again  (p.  13) : — 

*  It  has  become,  perhaps  always  has  been  in  modem  times,  a 
widespread  opinion,  even  among  some  scholars,  that  the  belief  in 
fairies  is  the  sole  property  of  simple,  uneducated  country-folk,  and 
that  people  who  have  had  a  touch  of  education  and  a  Uttle  common- 
sense  knocked  into  their  heads,  to  use  the  ordinary  language,  wouldn't 
be  caught  beHeving  in  such  nonsense.  .  .  .  But  we  shall  say  now, 
for  we  can  say  it  truly,  that  there  are  men  in  Dublin,  in  other  parts 
of  Ireland,  in  Scotland  too,  whom  all  the  world  know  as  educated 
leaders  in  their  respective  fields  of  activity,  who  not  only  declare 
their  behef  that  fairies  were,  but  that  fairies  are  ;  and  some  of  these 
men  have  the  power  to  see  fairies  as  real  subjective  existences  at  the 
psychic  centres  to  which  we  have  referred  in  the  preceding  chapter.' 
'  The  Ben  Bulben  country  and  Ross  Point  in  County  Sligo  are  among 
the  very  rare  places  in  Ireland  for  seeing  fairies,  and  it  is  no  secret 
that  more  than  one  Dublin  seer  often  make  pilgrimages  thither  ' 
(p.  46). 

Nor  is  the  area  of  these  manifestations  limited  to  Celtic 
lands  : — 

'  I  have  been  told  by  a  friend  in  California,  who  is  a  student  of 
psychical  sciences,  that  there  exists  in  certain  parts  of  that  state, 
notably  in  the  Yosemite  Valley,  as  the  Red  Men  seem  to  have 
known,  according  to  their  traditions,  invisible  races  exactly  compar- 
able to  the  "  gentry  "  of  this  Ben  Bulben  country  as  our  seer- witness 
describes  them  and  as  other  seers  in  Ireland  have  described  them, 
and  quite  like  the  "  people  of  peace  "  as  described  by  Kirk,  the 
seventh  son,  ia  his  Secret  Commonwealth.  These  California  races  are 
known  to  exist  now,  as  the  Irish  and  Scotch  invisible  races  are  known 
to  exist  now,  by  seers  who  can  behold  them ;  and,  like  the  latter 
races,  are  said  to  be  a  distinct  order  of  beings  who  have  never  been  in 
physical  embodiments  '  (p.  48).  '  There  is  scientific  proof  that 
spirits  do  exist,  and  that  some  of  them  are  just  like  fairies  of  the 
pygmy  kind' (p.  289). 


164  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

One  other  statement  by  our  author  serves  to  define  his 
attitude  still  more  clearly.  In  referring  to  the  Celtic 
Atlantis,  or  Gardens  of  the  Hesperides,  variously  known  as 
Hy  Brasil,  Avalon,  and  Glas  Innis,  he  observes  (p.  165) : — 

*  Even  yet  at  rare  intervals,  like  a  phantom,  Hy  Brasil  appears 
far  out  on  the  Atlantic.  No  later  than  last  summer  [1908]  it  was 
seen  from  West  Ireland,  just  as  that  strange,  invisible  island  near 
Innismurray,  inhabited  by  the  invisible  "  gentry,"  is  seen — once  in 
seven  years.  And  Hy  Brasil  has  been  seen  by  too  many  men  of 
inteUigence,  even  together,  or  separated  at  the  same  moment,  as 
during  the  summer  of  1908,  to  explain  it  away  as  an  illusion  of  the 
senses.  Nor  can  it  be  due  to  a  mirage  such  as  we  know,  because 
neither  its  shape  nor  position  conform  to  any  known  island  or  land 
mass.' 

From  a  consideration  of  these  extracts  it  becomes 
evident  that  Mr.  Wentz's  'Psychical  Theory'  is  nothing 
less  than  a  restatement  in  modern  terms  of  the  old  belief 
that  fairies  are  veritably  supernatural  (or,  more  correctly, 
non-human)  beings,  and  that  Fairyland  has  to-day  a  real 
existence.  His  assertion,  already  quoted,  that  there  is 
'  an  invisible  world  within  which  the  visible  world  is  im- 
mersed as  an  island  in  an  unexplored  ocean,  and  that  it  is 
peopled  by  more  species  of  living  beings  than  this  world, 
because  incomparably  more  vast  and  varied  in  its  possi- 
bilities ' — that  assertion  is  one  which  forms  an  article  of 
belief  in  most  religions  ;  and  no  one  can  prove  that  it  is 
erroneous.  But  in  saying  that  I  am  very  far  from  admitting 
that  Mr.  Wentz's  interpretation  of  fairy  story  is  the  most 
convincing  of  the  five  theories  specified  by  him.  In  a  great 
number  of  the  tales  of  this  class  a  much  more  commonplace 
explanation  seems  to  me  preferable. 

Let  us  glance,  for  example,  at  the  stories  of  vanishing  or 
enchanted  islands.  To  this  category  belonged,  at  one  time, 
the  little  island  of  Eynhallow,  which  lies  between  Rousay 
and  the  mainland  of  Orkney.  '  Once  upon  a  time,'  says  Mr. 
Duncan  J.  Robertson,^  '  the  isle  was  enchanted,  and  visible 

>  The  Orkney  Book^  p.  392  :  Edinburgh,  1909. 


A  NEW  SOLUTION  OF  THE  FAIEY  PROBLEM     165 

to  human  eyes  only  at  rare  intervals.  It  would  rise  sud- 
denly out  of  the  sea,  and  vanish  as  suddenly  before  any 
mortal  could  reach  it.'  But  the  spell  was  broken  one  day ; 
and  now  it  is  down  on  the  Ordnance  Survey  Maps,  and  an 
ever-present  danger  to  seafarers  in  that  stormy  '  roost.' 
How  is  one  to  account  for  the  genesis  of  such  a  belief  ?  In 
our  foggy  climate  the  intermittent  disappearance  and  re- 
appearance of  coasts  and  islands  is  a  very  familiar  phe- 
nomenon, and  not  distinctive  of  any  one  island.  Where 
the  island  lay  very  far  out  from  land,  however,  this  circum- 
stance might  give  rise  to  the  superstition,  among  an  ignorant 
people.  But  the  situation  of  EynhaUow,  with  land  close 
to  it  on  either  side,  will  not  allow  of  this  explanation.  The 
fact  that  EynhaUow  is  traditionally  regarded  as  having  been 
the  last  refuge  of  the  Finnmen,  a  people  said  to  have  had 
the  power  of  casting  magic  spells,  has  probably  a  close 
bearing  upon  the  alleged  enchantment  of  the  island. 

Inis-Bofin,  off  the  coast  of  County  Mayo,  has  a  similar 
history  to  EynhaUow.  In  this  case,  the  spell  was  broken  by 
the  lighting  of  a  fire  on  the  beach  ;  the  Orkney  islet  having 
been  disenchanted  by  a  man  bringing  steel  in  his  hand. 

In  referring  to  those  magic  islands  which  may  be  sought 
for  in  vain  on  modern  charts,  Mr.  T.  J.  Westropp,  M.R.I. A., 
suggests  that  the  tradition  may  be  a  far-off  memory  of 
actual  land,  submerged  long  ago.  '  For  Atlantis  and 
Brasil  and  St.  Brendan's  Island  were,  perhaps,  no  myth  ; 
and  the  earthquake-wave  that  split  Inisfitae  in  three  in  802 
was  but  one  of  a  thousand  other  cataclysms  in  the  aU- 
powerful  Atlantic.'^  It  is  not  necessary  to  go  back  an 
immense  period  of  time  to  find  such  geological  changes  ; 
and  it  is  permissible  to  suppose  that  Celtic  tradition  may 
contain  references  to  the  sunken  island  which  is  nowadays 
represented  only  by  the  islet-crag  of  Rockall ;  the  date  of 
the  subsidence  of  that  island  being  possibly  as  recent  as  the 
year  802. 

We  need  not  indulge  further  in  surmises  as  to  why 

1  The  Islands  and  Coast  of  Ireland,  p.  24  :  Dublin,  1905. 


166  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

Inis-Bofin  and  Eynhallow  were  at  one  time  supposed  to 
come  and  go.  They  have  long  since  settled  down  into 
steady,  well-behaved  islands,  as  permanent  as  any  other 
part  of  the  world.  As  for  the  uncharted  land  of  Hy  Brasil, 
I  prefer  to  think  with  Mr.  Westropp  that  it  only  now  exists 
as  a  memory  ;  unless  Rockall  be  held  to  be  its  topmost 
pinnacle.  With  all  deference  to  Mr.  Wentz  and  his  friends, 
I  am  unable  to  believe  that  any  intangible  island  is  ever  seen 
from  our  shores,  although  certain  individuals  are  honestly 
convinced  that  such  an  island  has  at  times  been  made 
visible  to  them. 

Nor  does  the  Psychical  Theory  appear  to  me  to  offer  a 
satisfactory  solution  of  the  groundwork  of  the  fairy  stories. 
In  some  of  their  phases  these  stories  can  be  explained  by 
means  of  the  theories  denominated  Naturalistic  and  Mytho- 
logical. But  their  real  groundwork  is,  in  my  opinion,  of  a 
much  more  simple  and  matter-of-fact  description.  One  of 
Mr.  Wentz's  witnesses  states  (p.  62)  that  '  the  fairies  of  any 
one  race  are  the  people  of  the  preceding  race  ;  the  Fomors 
for  the  Fir  Bolgs,  the  Fir  Bolgs  for  the  Dananns,  and  the 
Dananns  for  us.'  To  a  certain  extent  I  am  in  agreement 
with  this  opinion  ;  for  several  different  races  appear  to 
have  become  telescoped  together  in  these  traditional  tales. 
But  the  dominant  note  in  Celtic  folk-lore  is  that  of  a  small- 
sized  people  who  lived  in  hollow  hillocks  or  in  underground 
houses,  and  who  appear  to  have  differed  in  many  ways  from 
the  neighbouring  races  whose  habitations,  of  wood  or  stone, 
were  built  on  the  surface  of  the  ground.  Such  were  the 
daoine-sidhe,  or  mound-folk,  of  Gaelic  story.  And  the 
recognition  of  the  daoine-sidhe  as  a  real  people,  imper- 
fectly remembered,  constitutes  the  theories  known  to  Mr. 
Wentz  as  *  Pygmy '  and  '  Druid.'  For  the  two  theories 
are  one  in  substance,  whether  they  are  in  agreement  with 
each  other  or  not. 

As  one  of  the  advocates  of  the  Pygmy  Theory,  I  may 
explain  that  the  term  *  pygmy '  is  here  used  to  denote  a  race 
of  a  stature  presumably  approximating  that  of  the  Congo 


A  NEW  SOLUTION  OF  THE  FAIRY  PROBLEM     167 

pygmies  who  visited  this  country  two  or  three  years  ago.  Or, 
to  speak  more  definitely,  a  race  in  which  the  average  male 
stature  does  not  exceed  four  feet  nine  inches.^  This  explana- 
tion is  necessary,  because  some  misapprehension  appears 
to  exist  with  regard  to  the  meaning  conveyed  by  the  term. 
'  Dwarf  '  is  probably  a  more  suitable  word.  It  may  be  added 
that  the  conception  of  fairies  as  delicate,  aerial  beings,  of 
almost  microscopic  dimensions,  is  dismissed  from  considera- 
tion, as  a  comparatively  recent  creation  of  fancy.  And  the 
erroneous  interpretations  of  daoine-sidhe  as  '  people  of  peace,' 
so  much  at  variance  with  the  attributes  with  which  they  are 
credited,  is  also  left  out  of  view.  Dr.  Thomas  M'Lauchlan,  in 
pointing  out  the  fallacy  of  this  interpretation,  insisted  on  the 
fact  that  sid  or  (later)  sidh  denotes  a  conical  mountain,  hill, 
or  hillock,  and  that  the  daoine-sidhe  were  so  named  because 
they  were  understood  to  inhabit  certain  hillocks.  The 
word  came  to  be  often  applied  indifferently  to  the  hillocks 
and  to  their  inhabitants,  without  the  explanatory  daoine, 
•fir,  and  muathan.  Thus,  we  frequently  read  of  the  people 
themselves  as  '  the  side,^  or  '  the  sidhe.^  Even  the  com- 
pound sid-brug  (or  hrog),  aspirated  into  sidh-bhroch,  literally 
'  hillock-burgh,'  had  the  same  double  application.  One 
Irish  writer  Anglicises  the  latter  form  as  she  frogh,  '  a  fairy.' 
In  Gaelic,  it  has  been  corrupted  into  sia-bra  and  sibhreach. 
This  usage  is  paralleled  in  English  in  the  twofold  application 
of  '  bluejacket '  and  '  redcoat '  to  these  garments  themselves 
and  to  the  men  whom  they  cover.  ^ 

As  adverse  critics  of  the  views  expressed  by  myself  and 
others  in  relation  to  the  mound -dwellers  of  tradition,  Mr. 
Wentz  cites  Dr.  Bertram  C.  A.  Windle,  and  Mr.  Andrew 
Lang.     I  have  replied  at  considerable  length  to  the  objec- 

^  This  is  the  upward  limit  recognized  by  Dr.  Windle  in  his  Introduction  to  Tyson's 
Pygmies  of  the  Ancients,  edition  of  1894  (London),  p.  xy.  In  some  instances  a  con- 
siderably lower  limit  might  be  taken ;  one  tribe,  for  example,  being  recorded  as 
having  a  maximum  stature  of  four  feet. 

'^  This  etymological  detail  is  more  fully  discussed  in  my  '  Notes  on  the  word  Sidh,' 
in  the  Journal  of  the  Boyal  Society  of  Antiquaries  of  Ireland,  December  1893. 


168  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

tions  urged  by  these  writers,  in  the  undernoted  publications/ 
to  which  I  refer  any  reader  specially  interested  in  this  sub- 
ject. It  is  enough  to  say  here  that  two  of  the  chief  objections 
are  thus  summarized  :  *  (1)  So  far  as  our  present  knowledge 
teaches  us,  there  never  was  a  really  pygmy  race  inhabiting 
the  northern  parts  of  Scotland  ;  (2)  the  mounds  with  which 
the  tales  of  little  people  are  associated  have  not,  in  many 
cases,  been  habitations,  but  were  natural  or  sepulchral  in 
their  nature.' 

With  reference  to  the  first  of  these  objections,  it  may  be 
said  that  the  whole  question  of  a  dwarf  race  in  Scotland 
would  be  removed  altogether  out  of  the  realm  o\  theory, 
if  the  evidence  in  favour  of  that  belief  were  so  convincing 
in  all  respects  as  to  leave  no  room  for  doubt  in  the  mind  of 
any  reasonable  person.  It  is  a  good  deal  an  affair  of  mental 
bias.  Nothing  less  than  the  discovery  of  a  large  number  of 
skeletons,  denoting  an  actual  dwarf  race,  is  requisite  for 
those  who  can  only  be  satisfied  with  tangible  proof.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  appears  to  myself  and  a  considerable  number 
of  those  who  have  examined  this  question,  that  the  existence 
of  such  a  race  is  so  strongly  indicated  by  several  separate 
deductions  that  any  further  evidence  would  be  regarded 
rather  as  confirmation  of  a  conclusion  already  arrived  at 
than  as  something  essential  to  the  solution  of  a  previously 
doubtful  problem. 

Of  the  existence  and  world-wide  distribution  of  pygmy 
or  dwarf  races,  there  is  no  question  whatever ;  although 
the  study  of  these  people  is  still  so  comparatively  recent 
that  the  fact  of  their  existence,  past  and  present,  has  scarcely 
yet  been  grasped  by  the  general  mind.  It  is  yet  quite 
customary  to  speak  of  the  '  fable  '  which  recounts  the  wars 
between  the  pygmies  and  the  cranes.  The  late  Sir  William 
Flower's  suggestion  that  this  fable  is  merely  a  confused 
memory  of  the  ostrich-hunting  dwarf  tribes  of  the  Nile 
region  is,  however,  generally  accepted  by  specialists.     Those 

'  The  Academy,  London,  12th  June  1896,  pp.  37-38,  and  The  Monthly  RevieWy 
London,  January  1901,  pp.  131-148. 


i 


A  NEW  SOLUTION  OF  THE  FAIRY  PROBLEM     169 

now  extinct  dwarfs  of  Northern  Africa  are  referred  to  by 
many  classic  writers  ^  and  Brugsch  cites  an  inscription  at 
Karnak  which  states  how  '  the  dwarfs  of  the  southern 
countries  come  to  him  [the  reigning  Ptolemy],  bringing  their 
tributes  to  his  treasury.'  M.  Edouard  Naville  further 
infers,  from  a  picture  in  the  great  temple  of  Bubastis,  that 
the  vergers  of  the  temple  were  specially  selected  from  that 
race  ;  a  custom  possibly  derived  from  the  dwarf -worship  of 
Egypt  and  Phoenicia.  The  Gammadim  of  the  Jewish 
Scriptures,^  rendered  Pygmoei  in  the  Vulgate,  were  pre- 
sumably of  the  same  stock. 

The  observations  of  Sir  Harry  Johnston,  who  has  en- 
countered many  of  the  African  dwarfs,  are  so  germane  to  the 
present  theme,  that  one  of  his  most  suggestive  passages  may 
well  be  quoted  here.  He  remarks  as  follows  :  '  Other  dwarf 
races  of  humanity  [than  the  Congo  pygmies]  belonging  to 
the  white  or  the  Mongolian  species  may  have  inhabited 
Northern  Europe  in  ancient  times,  or  it  is  just  possible  that 
this  type  of  Pygmy  Negro,  which  survives  to-day  in  the 
recesses  of  Inner  Africa,  may  even  have  overspread  Europe 
in  remote  times.  If  it  did,  then  the  conclusion  is  irresistible 
that  it  gave  rise  to  most  of  the  mjrths  and  beliefs  connected 
with  gnomes,  kobolds,  and  fairies.  The  demeanour  and 
actions  of  the  little  Congo  dwarfs  at  the  present  day  remind 
one,  over  and  over  again,  of  the  traits  attributed  to  the 
brownies  and  goblins  of  our  fairy  stories.  Their  remarkable 
power  of  becoming  invisible  by  adroit  hiding  in  herbage  and 
behind  rocks,  their  probable  habits  in  sterile  or  open 
countries  of  making  their  homes  in  holes  and  caverns,  their 
mischievousness  and  their  prankish  good-nature,  all  seem 
to  suggest  that  it  was  some  race  like  this  which  inspired 
most  of  the  stories  of  Teuton  and  Celt  regarding  a  dwarfish 
people  of  quasi-supernatural  attributes.'^ 

It  will  be  seen  that  Sir  Harry  Johnston,  postulating  the 

1  Pliny,  Pomponius  Mela,  Aristotle,  Ctesias,  Herodotus,  and  Homer. 

2  Ezekiel  xxvii,  11. 

3  Fall  Mall  Magazine,  February  1902,  p.  178. 


170  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

existence  of  a  negrito  race  in  early  Europe,  regards  as  a 
conclusion  quite  irresistible  the  ascription  to  them  of  the 
majority  of  the  stories  relating  to  '  brownies.'  He  further 
suggests  that  other  dwarf  races  of  humanity,  belonging  to 
the  white  or  the  Mongolian  species,  may  have  formerly 
inhabited  Northen  Europe.  That  all  these  surmises  are 
well  founded  is  being  steadily  established  by  the  researches 
of  European  anatomists  ;  and  Professor  Julius  Kollmann, 
of  the  University  of  Basle,  who  has  studied  this  question 
for  many  years,  has  arrived  at  the  conviction  that  the 
dwarf  races  represent  the  primitive  stock  from  which  all 
the  taller  races  have  been  evolved.  Thus  science,  by 
rational  deduction,  is  to-day  confirming  what  the  sagas 
have  told  us  long  ago,  that  the  dwarfs  were  created  before 
'  men,' — ix,  the  taller  races. 

Many  specimens  of  the  extinct  European  pygmy  have 
now  been  examined  by  the  anatomists  of  various  countries. 
As  early  as  1892,  Dr.  Niiesch,  of  the  College  of  Schaffhausen, 
in  Switzerland,  described  the  osseous  remains  of  dwarfs 
which  he  had  discovered  at  Schweizersbild,  lying  side  by 
side  with  the  remains  of  people  of  ordinary  stature.  The 
average  stature  of  these  Swiss  dwarfs  was  1424  mm.,  or 
about  4  feet  8  inches.  Professor  Kollmann  points  out  that 
the  bones  were  pronounced  by  Professor  R.  Virchow  to  be 
of  normal  structure,  and  not  those  of  pathologically  degener- 
ated people.  It  must  be  clearly  understood  that  in  all  the 
instances  here  referred  to,  the  skeletal  remains  examined 
by  anatomists  were  those  of  a  dwarf  race,  and  did  not 
represent  abnormal  specimens  of  a  race  of  ordinary  stature. 
The  numerous  pygmy  remains  found  in  cemeteries  in  Silesia 
and  France,  described  by  Professor  Thilenius  of  Breslau  ^ 
and  others,  and  those  recorded  at  Mentone  by  Verneau 
and  De  Villeneuve,  all  afford  parallel  evidence.  In  several 
instances,  the  bones  of  these  two  different  types  of  man 
have  been  found  together,  thus  implying  that,  in  these 
cases,  at  least,  the  two  races  had  lived  together  in  amity. 

*  Now  of  Hamburg. 


A  NEW  SOLUTION  OF  THE  FAIEY  PROBLEM    171 

Tradition,  however,  while  it  often  endorses  this  belief, 
speaks  also  of  frequent  conflicts  between  the  dwarfs  and 
their  taller  neighbgurs.  Such  a  state  of  matters  in  the 
Netherlands  is  indicated  by  a  modern  Flemish  writer,^  in 
these  words  :  '  The  Fenlanders,  a  race  dwelling  in  our 
country  prior  to  the  Celts,  were  little  people,  but  strong, 
dexterous,  and  good  swimmers  ;  living  by  hunting  and 
fishing.  Adam  of  Bremen  in  the  eleventh  century  thus 
pictures  their  descendants  or  race  :  "  They  had  large  heads, 
flat  faces,  flat  noses,  and  large  mouths.  They  lived  in 
caves  of  the  rocks,  which  they  quitted  in  the  night-time 
for  the  purpose  of  committing  sanguinary  outrages."  The 
Celtic  people,  and  later  those  of  German  race,  so  tall  and 
strong,'  observes  our  modern  commentator,  '  could  hardly 
look  upon  such  little  folk  as  human  beings.  They  must 
have  regarded  them  as  strange,  mysterious  creatures.  And 
when  these  negroes,  or  Fenlanders,  had  lived  for  a  long 
enough  time  hidden  in  their  grottoes,  for  fear  of  the  new 
people,  especially  when  they  at  length  fell  into  decay  through 
poverty,  or  died  out,  they  became  changed  in  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  dreamy  Germans  into  mysterious  beings,  a  kind 
of  ghosts  or  gods.' 

This  traditional  account  of  a  race  of  black  dwarfs  in- 
habiting the  Netherlands  is,  it  will  be  noticed,  singularly 
in  agreement  with  Sir  Harry  Johnston's  hypothesis.  But 
he  also  assumes  that  the  yellow  and  white  races  may  have 
had  similar  precursors  in  Europe.  There  is  plenty  of  room 
for  conjecture  as  to  the  complexion  of  these  races,  and  as  to 
the  various  periods  when  they  may  have  flourished.  The 
much-used  adjective  '  prehistoric '  is  often  employed  with 
little  warrant.  Indeed,  the  Italian  anthropologists,  Sergi, 
Mantia,  and  Pulle,  have  deduced  an  early  'Mediterranean 
race '  of  pygmy  stature  from  a  study  of  existing  types. 

The  following  brief  extracts  from  a  very  instructive  paper 
published  this  autumn  ^  are  much  to  the  purpose  :    '  In  an 

^  In  the  Flemish  folk-lore  journal,  0ns  Volksleven,  June  1895,  p.  104. 
2  *  Traditions  of  Dwarf  Races  in  Ireland  and  Switzerland,'  by  Miss  Elizabeth 
Andrews  ;  The  Antiquary.     London  :  Elliot  Stock,  October  1909. 


172  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

article  on  "  The  Fairy  Mythology  of  Europe  in  its  Relation 
to  Early  History  "  (Nineteenth  Century  and  After,  February 
1908),  Mr.  A.  S.  Herbert  identifies  the  early  dwarf  race 
with  Palaeolithic  men,  and  states  that  from  such  skeletons 
as  have  been  unearthed,  "it  is  believed  that  they  were  a 
people  of  Mongolian  or  Turanian  origin,  short,  squat,  yellow- 
skinned,  and  swarthy."  Professor  J.  Kollmann  of  Basle, 
speaking  of  dwarf  races,  describes  *'  the  flat,  broad  face, 
with  a  flat,  broad,  low  nose  and  large  nose  roots."  Com- 
pare these  statements  with  the  description  given  by  Harris 
in  the  eighteenth  century  of  the  native  inhabitants  of  the 
northern  and  eastern  coasts  of  Ireland.  "  They  are,"  he 
says,  "of  a  squat  sett  Stature,  have  short,  broad  Faces, 
thick  Lips,  hollow  Eyes,  and  Noses  cocked  up,  and  seem  to 
be  a  distinct  people  from  the  Western  Irish,  by  whom  they 
are  called  Clan-galls — ^.e.  the  offspring  of  the  Galls."  ' 

As  a  pendant  to  this  modern  instance  may  be  taken  the 
description  of  a  certain  part  of  the  commonalty  of  Caithness 
in  the  year  1750  as  '  pitifuU  half-starved  Creatures,  of  a  Low 
Dwarfish  Stature,  whom  a  Stranger  would  hardly  believe  to 
be  Inhabitants  of  Great  Britain.'^  In  both  of  these  cases, 
a  community  is  indicated  which  differs  much  from  the 
prevailing  type,  and  is  characterized  by  low  stature. 

Just  across  the  narrow  firth  which  separates  Caithness 
from  Orkney,  the  tradition  of  a  previous  dwarfish  race  still 
survives.  This  tradition,  to  use  the  more  modest  term, 
although  much  that  passes  as  '  history '  has  no  better 
authority,  was  placed  upon  record  in  the  year  1443  by  the 
then  Governor  and  Bishop  of  Orkney,  Thomas  Tulloch,  in 
his  Latin  account  De  Orcadibus  Insulis,  Tulloch  was 
Governor  of  Orkney  (1422-48)  under  the  Scandinavian 
monarch,  Eric  vii.  of  Denmark,  Orkney  being  at  that  time 
a  Danish  possession.  His  account  naturally  goes  back  to 
the  ninth  century,  when  the  Scandinavians,  under  Harold 
Haarfagr,  conquered   and  colonized  the  archipelago.     At 

*  The  Highlands  of  Scotland  in  1760,  edited  by  Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  p.  7.     Bdin. 
burgh  and  London  :  Blackwood,  1898. 


A  NEW  SOLUTION  OF  THE  FAIRY  PROBLEM     173 

that  time,  says  TuUoch,  the  islands  were  occupied  by  two 
races — one  that  of  the  papce,  or  priests,  now  generally 
assumed  to  have  been  Gaelic  missionaries,  and  the  other  the 
Peti.  Of  the  Peti  *he  asserts  that  they  were  '  not  much 
bigger  than  pygmies  in  stature,  and  worked  wonderfully  in 
the  construction  of  their  burghs,'^  taking  refuge  at  other 
times  in  '  little  underground  houses.'  These  Peti  are 
generally  identified  with  the  Picts  of  history,  but  Mr.  W.  C. 
Mackenzie  is  of  opinion  that  the  countryfolk  have  confused 
the  latter  people  with  an  earlier  dwarf  race  of  Peti  or  Pehts,^ 
The  common  belief,  however,  is  strongly  endorsed  by  Mr. 
Charles  H.  Chambers,  who,  writing  to  the  Anthropological 
Review  in  1864,  observes :  '  I  believe  the  race  which  in- 
habited the  northern  shores  of  Europe  to  have  been  akin  to 
the  Laps,  Fins,  and  Esquimaux,  and  the  Pickts  or  Pechts  of 
Scotland,  and  to  have  given  rise  to  many  of  the  dwarf,  troll, 
and  fairy  stories  extant  among  the  sagas  and  elsewhere.' 
One  thing  certain  is  that  the  builders  and  occupants  of  the 
little  underground  houses  of  Orkney  must  have  been  a  small 
people.  The  entrance  passage  to  one  of  these  dwellings,  on 
the  north-west  side  of  Wideford  Hill,  near  Kirkwall,  is  only 
15  inches  high  and  22  inches  broad,  its  length  being  15  feet. 
'  What  size  could  the  people  have  been  who  crawled  in 
through  such  rabbit  holes  as  the  passages  of  this  eirde 
house  are  ?  '  asks  Mr.  J.  R.  Tudor. ^  '  No  wonder  the  popular 
idea  is  that  the  Pechts  or  Picts  were  an  uncanny  race.'  Of 
nearly  the  same  dimensions  were  the  two  passages  leading 
into  a  '  Fairy  Knowe  '  near  Stromness,  which  I  assisted  in 
exploring  in  1902,  except  that  they  were  only  4  feet  in 
length.  It  might  be  thought  that,  when  it  comes  to 
crawling  along  such  a  passage,  there  is  no  deduction  possible 
as  to  stature.  But  the  experiences  of  Danish  colonists 
among  the  Greenland  Eskimos  have  shown,  if  proof  were 

^  In  structuris  urbium  mira  operantes. 

2  See  his  article,  '  The  Picts  and  Pets,'  in  The  Antiquary.     London  :  Elliot  Stock, 
May  1906. 

3  The  Orkneys  and  Shetland^  pp.  284-286  :  London,  1883. 


174  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

necessary,  that  the  small  man  can  creep  along  a  passage 
where  the  man  of  longer  limbs  finds  progress  impracticable. 

Although  many  of  the  underground  structures  of  Scot- 
land and  Ireland  are  spacious  enough  for  ordinary  men,  the 
significant  fact, remains  that  a  certain  proportion  of  them 
cannot  be  so  used.  '  The  entrances  are  small,  but  the  tiny 
doorways  between  one  chamber  and  another  are  even  of 
more  diminutive  dimensions — great  numbers  being  too 
small  to  admit  the  average-sized  man — a  person  having  to 
lie  down  flat  in  order  to  get  through,  and  even  then  the 
width  will  not  allow  other  than  the  shoulders  of  a  woman  or 
a  boy  to  pass  through.'  These  are  the  words  of  one  who 
has  made  a  long  and  precise  study  of  the  Irish  souterrains,^ 
and  they  apply  with  equal  force  to  several  of  the  kindred 
structures  in  Scotland. 

In  considering  the  Irish  mound-dwellings  and  souterrains 
we  again  find  the  Pict  equation  brought  before  us.  '  In  an 
ancient  genealogy,'  observes  the  late  Mr.  Herbert  Hore," 
'  we  read  of  a  wife  who  was  obtained  from  the  mounds  of  the 
son  of  Seal  Balbh,  or  King  of  Pictland.'  Possibly  this  refers 
to  Nar,  daughter  of  Lotan  of  the  Pict-folk,  who  is  chronicled 
as  having  come  '  out  of  the  mound-dweUings,'  a  sidaib  no 
do  Chruithentuaiih,^  There  is  some  reason  for  supposing 
that  this  Nar  lived  in  the  sixth  century  of  our  era,  and  that 
her  father  ruled  over  the  Picts  of  Meath,  and  perhaps  of 
Ulster.  She  is  again  mentioned  in  a  Gaelic  MS.,  which 
formerly  belonged  to  the  M'Lauchlans  of  Kilbride  (Argyll), 
and  is  now  in  the  Advocates'  Library  ;  and  again  in  a  folio 
vellum   MS.,  now  in  the    Royal    Irish    Academy.*      Nar 

*  Mrs.  Mary  Hobson,  in  '  An  Account  of  some  Souterrains  in  Ulster,'  read  before 
the  British  Association  at  Leicester  in  1907.  See  also  her  paper,  'Some  Ulster 
Souterrains,'  in  the  Journcd  of  the  Royal  Anthropological  Institute  of  Cheat  Britain 
and  Ireland,  vol.  xxxii.,  January- June,  1909. 

'  Journal  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Antiquaries  of  Ireland^  June  1895,  p.  128. 
3  Book  of  Ballymote,  250  a,  6,  as  quoted  in  Dr.  Hayes  O'Grady's  Silva  Oaddica, 
English  volume,  pp.  495,  544. 

*  See,  respectively,  Kilbride  MS.  No.  3,  6  (as  quoted  in  SUva  Oaddica,  English 
volume,  pp.  495,  644),  and  Petrie's  Round  Towers  of  Ireland^  pp.  97,  99 :  Dublin, 
1845. 


A  NEW  SOLUTION  OF  THE  FAIEY  PEOBLEM     175 

was  married  to  Crimthann,  of  the  royal  race  of  Tara, 
who  became  known  as  '  Nar's  Champion  '  (Niadh-Nair).  The 
kings  of  Tara  had  been  accustomed  to  bury  at  Cruachan  in 
Connaught,  but  Nar  induced  her  husband  to  abandon  this 
practice,  and  to  agree  to  be  buried  in  the  Cemetery  of  the 
Brugh  (Relec  in  Broga),  in  the  Boyne  valley,  where  all  her 
forefathers  had  been  buried.  In  due  time,  therefore,  this 
was  done,  and  '  the  Bare  [cairn]  of  Crimthann  Niadh-Nair, 
in  which  he  was  interred,'  is  mentioned  in  the  Dinnsenchus 
as  one  of  the  many  notable  monuments  in  the  Cemetery  of 
the  Brugh.  Now,  in  stating  that  Nar's  forefathers  had  all 
been  buried  in  this  cemetery,  it  is  also  stated  that  she  and 
her  people  were  members  of  the  Tuatha  Dea,  or  Dananns, 
or  followers  of  Danu  ;  a  people  frequently  spoken  of  as  the 
daoinesidhe,  or  mound-dwellers.  That  part  of  the  Boyne 
Valley,  the  Brugh,  was  specially  associated  with  them. 
There  was  the  Cemetery  of  the  Brugh,  with  its  many  pillar- 
stones,  cairns,  cashels,  cumots,  and  fulachts,  which  marked 
the  burial-places  of  the  famous  heroes  of  the  race.  There 
was  presumably  a  large  settlement  of  people,  occupying,  in 
winter,  although  probably  not  in  summer,  various  souterrains 
and  mound-dwellings.  And,  lastly,  there  was  the  large 
mound  which  archaeologists  associate  in  name  with  the 
neighbouring  farm  of  New  Grange.  This  mound  is  likely  the 
place  spoken  of  as  Sid  an  Broga,  or  the  Mound  of  the  Brugh. 
It  figures  prominently  in  traditional  lore,  which  pronounced 
it  to  be  a  home  of  '  the  little  people.'  Re-opened  in  1695, 
this  mound  contains  (in  one  part,  for  its  exploration  has 
never  been  completed)  a  stone-built  room  and  entrance 
passage,  exactly  corresponding  with  the  ground-plan  of  the 
stone-built  winter-huts  used  by  the  Eskimos  of  North 
Greenland  at  the  present  day  ^ 

From  the  statements  made  in  the  three  preceding  para- 
graphs it  will  be  seen  that  what  Mr.  Wentz  caUs  the  Pygmy 
Theory  is  really  much  more  than  a  theory.     There  may  be  a 

*  See  illustration    at    p.   236  of  Eivind  Astrup's  Blandt  Nordpolens  Nahoer : 
Christiania,  1895. 


176  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

difference  of  opinion  as  to  whether  the  Gaelic  and  Norse 
chroniclers  were  right  in  associating  the  Picts  with  the  little 
underground  houses  to  which  I  have  referred  with  a  brevity 
unworthy  of  the  theme.  In  a  future  paper  I  hope  to  dis- 
cuss this  question  more  fully,  not  omitting  to  consider  the 
'  Druid  Theory.'  What  is  quite  clear  is  that  the  small 
souterrains  of  the  British  Isles  must  have  been  constructed 
by  a  small  race.  And  it  appears  to  me  and  to  many  others 
that  these  structures  and  their  occupants  form  the  basis  of 
the  tales  which  relate  to  the  intercourse,  often  quite  homely 
and  matter-of-fact,  between  people  of  ordinary  stature  and 
a  small  race  living  underground. 


PAN-CELTIC  NOTES 

A  CONFERENCE  of  Celtic  societies  in  London  convened  by  the  Celtic 
Association  (London  Branch)  was  held  on  14th  July  last  at  64  Chancery 
Lane,  by  permission  of  Mr.  Vincent  Evans.  The  chair  was  taken  by  the 
Right  Hon.  Lord  Castletown  of  Upper  Ossory,  P.C.,  K.P.,  ('MacGiolla 
Phadruic '),  President  of  the  Celtic  Association,  and  eleven  Celtic  organisa- 
tions were  represented,  either  officially  or  by  individual  members.  The 
conference  resolved  that  an  association  be  created  upon  lines  suggested  by 
Mr.  Henry  Jenner  (Cornwall),  to  which  all  the  other  Celtic  Societies  should 
be  affiliated,  or,  in  the  alternative,  or  as  a  sequent  idea,  that  a  permanent 
Celtic  Club  on  lines  indicated  by  Mr.  A.  Perceval  Graves,  junior  (Ireland), 
be  established  in  London.     Mr.  Jenner's  proposal  is : — 

'  That  a  Central  Celtic  Association  be  formed  (or  perhaps  the  present 
Celtic  Association  be  adapted)  with  the  object  of  promoting  Celtic 
Congresses,  concerts,  lectures,  and  other  entertainments,  and  perhaps 
eventually  of  obtaining  some  building  in  which  the  offices  of  existing 
London  Celtic  Societies  might  be  collected.  Such  association  to  consist 
of:— 

(1)  Members  joining  individually. 

(2)  National  or  Sectional  Celtic  Societies  (Breton,  Cornish,  Irish,  Manx, 
Scottish  and  Welsh)  joining  collectively  as  members,  individual  members  of 
such  societies  to  be  Associates  of  the  Celtic  Association. 

The  terms  of  subscription  of  individual  and  collective  members,  and  the 
comparative  privileges  of  members  and  associates,  are  left  to  be  settled 
later. 

Mr.  Graves's  proposal  for  a  Club  contains  these  provisions : — 


PAN-CELTIC  NOTES  177 

Membership  and  Associateship.  The  Celtic  Club  would  be  open  to  all 
men  and  women  of  Celtic  origin  or  descent  as  members,  and  to  those  in 
sympathy  with  the  Pan-Celtic  Movement  as  associates. 

Objects,  (a)  Social — House  Dinners,  Dances  and  Concerts  would  be  held 
periodically. 

(b)  Educational — The  formation  of  a  Language  Bureau  is  suggested. 
Lectures  would  be  given,  and  debates  held  upon  Celtic  subjects,  including 
the  Languages,  Science,  Art,  Music,  History,  Literature  and  the  Drama  of 
the  Celts. 

(c)  Artistic. — Arts  and  crafts  exhibitions  would  be  a  prominent  feature 
of  this  section. 

(d)  Industrial — An  industries  register  would  be  kept,  and  a  special 
committee  formed  to  foster  Celtic  industries. 

The  questions  of  premises,  subscription,  and  financial  responsibility  are 
dealt  with  in  other  provisions,  and  the  suggestion  is  made  that  The  Celtic 
Review  should  be  the  official  organ  of  the  Celtic  Club. 

The  conference  resolved  that  both  Mr.  Jenner's  proposal  for  an  associa- 
tion and  Mr.  Graves's  proposal  for  a  club  should  be  submitted  in  writing  to 
all  the  Celtic  organisations  of  London  with  the  request  that  their  respective 
opinions  be  forwarded  to  Mr.  Graves  for  communication  to  the  Celtic 
Association. 

The  following  lectures  are  on  the  syllabus  of  Cumann  Eireannach  na 
Liteardhachta,  Lonndain  (The  Irish  Literary  Society,  London),  for  session 
1909-10:  'Novels  in  Irish  Life,'  by  Mrs.  Katharine  Tynan  Hinkson,  on 
November  6th ;  '  Possible  Development  of  the  Applied  Art  in  Irish  Life, 
by  Mr.  Charles  Gatty,  on  December  4th ;  a  lecture  by  Mr.  Michael 
MacDonagh  on  January  15th;  'The  Picturesque  in  Irish  Life,'  by  Mr. 
Richardson  Evans,  on  February  20th;  'Economics  in  Irish  Life,'  by  Mr. 
T.  M.  Kettle,  M.P.,  on  March  20th ;  '  The  Irish  Ancestors  of  Edgar  Allan 
Poe  and  the  Brontes,'  by  Mr.  Vesey  Knox,  on  April  16th;  'Agriculture  in 
Irish  Life,'  by  Mr.  George  W.  Eussell  ('A.  E.'),  on  May  20th;  'Holy  Wells 
of  Ireland,'  by  the  Rev.  G.  O'Neill,  on  June  4th.  Other  dates,  beginning 
with  a  reception  on  October  16th,  are  occupied  by  Original  Nights,  History 
Nights,  Literary  tea-tables.  House  Dinners  and  Dances. 

Mr.  A.  Perceval  Graves,  junior,  will  be  glad  to  receive  for  our  Pan-Celtic 
pages  from  the  secretaries  of  London  Celtic  Societies  all  items  of  their  notes, 
news,  book  publications,  etc.,  at  his  address,  65  Haymarket,  London 
S.W. 

The  current  number  of  The  Nationalist,  a  quarterly  magazine  for  Wales, 
edited  by  Sir  Marchant  Williams,  and  published  at  Cardiff,  contains,  an  '  In 
Memoriam '  notice  and  an  excellent  likeness  of  the  late  Mr.  S.  R.  John.  Our 
readers  may  have  observed  the  initials  '  S.  R.  J.'  to  the  Pan-Celtic  Notes  in 
our  July  issue.     Mr.  John  died  on  the  31st  of  July. 

In  the  spirit  of  our  beautiful  Highland  custom  of  adding  a  stone  to  the 
VOL.  VI.  M 


178  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

cairn  of  the  departed  in  honour  of  their  memory,  rve  give  room  to  the 
following  quotations  from  the  '  In  Memoriam '  which  is  by  Mr.  H.  Jones. 

*  In  the  death  of  Mr.  S.  R.  John,  at  the  sadly  premature  age  of  twenty-nine, 
Wales  has  lost  a  gifted  and  devoted  son.  For  over  twelve  months  he  had 
been  failing  in  health.  An  insidious  disease  was  steadily  sapping  his  vitality, 
but  he  fought  it  with  courage  and  uncomplaining  cheerfulness.  Pain  he  was 
mercifully  spared,  and  almost  to  the  last,  in  spite  of  great  physical  weakness, 
the  mind  remained  strong,  clear,  buoyant.  The  end  came  unexpectedly. 
He  was  at  work  on  the  Celtic  studies,  that  he  so  much  loved,  two  days 
before  he  died.' 

'  All  things  Welsh  enlisted  S.  R.  John's  enthusiastic  sympathy.  ...  I 
remember  well  the  look  of  rapture  on  his  face  at  the  Gk)rsedd  in  the  Temple 
Gardens,  London,  in  June  1908.  It  was  his  first  experience  of  the  Gorsedd 
circle.  Some  of  us  discovered  crudities  in  the  ceremonial,  but  John  was 
conscious  only  of  its  symbolism,  and  its  historical  significance.  He  saw  in 
it  a  relic  of  the  ancient  glories  of  our  race.  To  him  it  was  a  symbol  of  the 
perpetual  protest  of  the  Celts  against  the  dominance  of  material  things,  an 
outward  and  visible  sign  of  their  devotion  to  the  things  of  the  Spirit.  .  .  . 

'  His  love  for  Wales  was  not  exclusive.  The  Celt  everywhere — in  Ireland, 
in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  in  Cornwall,  in  Brittany — was  to  him  an 
object  of  intense  fascination.  He  was  a  highly  efficient  secretary  of  the 
London  branch  of  the  Celtic  Association,  and  edited  Celtia,  the  Pan-Celtic 
magazine,  with  signal  ability.' 

The  bicentenary  of  the  death  of  Huw  Morus,  known  to  his  countrymen 
by  the  name  of  *Eos  Ceiriog,'  or  Nightingale  of  Ceiriog,  has  been  marked 
by  the  erection  of  a  memorial  in  his  native  vale  of  Ceiriog  in  Denbighshire, 
and  the  editor  who  performed  the  ceremony  of  unveiling  the  monument  in 
August  last  writes  an  appreciation  of  the  bard,  and  gives  quotations  from 
the  addresses  delivered  on  the  occasion  by  the  Ven.  Archdeacon  Thomas 
and  the  crowned  bard  Cadwan. 

'Huw  Morus,'  said  the  Ven.  Archdeacon  Thomas,  *was  not  a  poet  of 
nature  but  of  humanity,  and  especially  of  its  social  and  homely  aspects. 
Whatever  tended  to  soothe  distress  and  alleviate  poverty,  to  amuse  his 
fellows  with  quaint  humour,  or  win  back  an  erring  brother,  to  expose 
pretence,  to  lash  wrong-doing,  and  to  promote  good  fellowship  and  pure 
religion — these  appealed  to  his  heart  and  his  muse  was  ever  ready  to 
promote  them.' 

•  Although  it  is  as  a  bard  that  Huw  Morus  is  known,'  Sir  William 
Marchant  said,  'and  as  a  bard  he  can  claim  a  seat  in  the  hall  of  the 
immortals,  were  all  the  poetry  that  adorns  his  carols,  his  elegies,  his  love- 
songs,  his  odes  and  his  alliterative  epigrams  extracted  from  them,  there 
would  be  left  a  mass  of  wit  and  wisdom  sufficient  to  mark  him  out  for 
higher  eminence  than  most  of  his  Welsh  contemporaries.  I  admit  that  he 
was  not  quite  as  great  a  poet  as  Dafydd  ab  Gwilym ;  at  the  same  time,  I 


W  PAN-CELTIC  NOTES  179 

have  to  admit  I  know  of  no  other  bard  that  so  closely  resembles  the  great 
Welsh  literary  genius  of  the  fifteenth  century.' 

Cadwan  told  how  a  neighbour  came  to  his  bedside  before  he  died  and 
asked  how  he  was.     He  replied  : — 

'  I  'm  going  to  a  world  of  bliss, 
I  'm  hastening,  hastening  out  of  this. 
And  He  is  there  ;  He  bids  me  come  ; 
And  in  His  name  I  'm  hastening  home.' 

This  was  his  last  englyn. 

Among  the  other  contents  of  The  Nationalist  are  :  '  The  National  Pageant 
of  Wales ;  A  Retrospect,'  by  G.  P.  Hawtrey ;  *  After  Ten  Years ' :  in 
memory  of  T.  E.  Ellis,  M.P.,  by  Ernest  Rhys,  with  portrait ;  '  The  Patriot,' 
by  Edward  Thomas;  'Eisteddfod  Reform,'  by  W.  E.  Davies;  Poetry, 
including  two  translations  from  Welsh  by  A.  Perceval  Graves,  and  one  by 
Edmund  0.  Jones,  and  a  quaint ^and  charming  portrait  of  *  the  sturdy  old 
Welsh  bard  Robert  Williams  (Robert  ab  Gwilym  Ddu),  the  teacher  of  the 
much  greater  bard,  Dewi  Wyn,  and  the  author  of  some  of  the  best  englynion 
and  hymns  in  the  Welsh  language.' 

Mr.  W.  J.  Watson,  M.A.,  has  been  appointed  Rector  of  the  Royal  High 
School,  Edinburgh.  He  has  filled  a  corresponding  position  for  some  years 
in  the  Royal  Academy,  Inverness,  and  his  success  as  an  educationalist  in  the 
Highland  capital  has  been  one,  and  no  doubt  the  most  potent,  of  several 
factors  in  procuring  him  his  new  appointment.  We  can  well  believe  that 
more  than  one  or  two  competitors  were  found  to  run  him  close  though 
they  failed  to  outstrip  him  in  the  race  for  the  Rectorship  of  the  Royal  High 
School,  but  as  author  of  a  book  on  Celtic  names  of  places  he  has  no  com- 
petitor. His  Place-Names  of  Boss  and  Cromarty  is  in  advance  of  every  book 
we  know  on  the  subject.  In  that  work  he  attacks  and  solves  problems,  the 
like  of  which  either  are  not  found  in  Ireland  or,  so  far  as  found  there,  are  not 
touched  upon  in  the  great  and  admirable  work  of  Dr.  Joyce.  His  papers  in 
the  Celtic  Remew  are  already  an  advance  upon  his  book,  and  we  have  the 
promise  of  greater  things  from  him.  Our  one  regret  in  connection  with  his 
new  appointment  is  the  loss  that  his  removal  to  Edinburgh  is  to  the  Gaelic 
Society  of  Inverness.  That  Society  does  not  fail  on  proper  occasion  to  make 
due  recognition  of  the  value  of  those  members  who  are  scattered  far  and  wide. 
The  distant  members  do  not  have  so  many  opportunities  perhaps  of  giving 
due  credit  to  the  services  of  the  members  resident  in  and  near  the  town,  in 
binding  the  Society  together  and  in  maintaining  its  high  level  of  success. 
Speaking  with  our  experience  of  the  Society,  partly  in  town  but  mostly  in  the 
country,  and  at  a  distance,  we  would  say  that  its  country  members  view  with 
concern  the  removal  to  a  distance  of  a  member  who  gave  so  much  service 
and  who  shed  so  much  lustre  upon  us.  There  are  still  left  in  and  around 
Inverness  good  men  and  true  who  need  yield  to  none  in  faithfulness  to  the 


180  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

society  and  in  ability  in  their  several  lines,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  they 
will  be  encouraged  by  a  hearty  response  to  Mr.  Watson's  parting  appeal  to 
Invernessians  to  swell  the  ranks  of  the  Gaelic  Society  and  to  experience  the 
benefits  of  association  with  it. 

That  of  contributor  to  its  pages  is  not  the  only  relation  in  which  Mr. 
Watson  stands  to  the  Celtic  Review,  and  his  removal  involves  also  the 
removal  of  our  Acting  Editor  from  Inverness  to  Edinburgh.  On  account  of 
the  removal,  this  number  of  the  Celtic  lleinew  has  had  to  pass  through  the 
press  without  the  care  and  attention  of  the  Acting  Editor,  who  had  to  seek 
relief  for  the  time  being  from  editorial  duties,  and  procure  a  substitute.  We 
congratulate  the  Celtic  Review  and  its  Acting  Editor  upon  the  change.  It  is  to 
the  advantage  of  both  that  the  latter  should  reside  at  the  seat  of  publication. 

A  Summer  School  of  Gaelic  has  been  held  for  four  weeks  in  August  last 
at  Roy  Bridge  in  Inverness-shire,  The  School  on  this  occasion  has  been 
no  doubt  somewhat  of  an  experiment,  but  not  an  unsuccessful  experiment. 
Not  only  has  a  beginning  been  made  and  the  initial  difficulties,  many 
and  great  as  these  must  have  been,  overcome,  but  so  well  satisfied 
are  those  who  took  part  in  the  experiment  with  its  success  that  a 
continuance  of  the  School  is  confidently  anticipated.  That  such  an 
institution  if  on  the  right  lines  would  prove  of  great  usefulness  and  attrac- 
tiveness is  certain,  that  it  has  made  at  least  a  fair  start  on  those  lines  at  Roy 
Bridge,  and  that,  if  continued,  as  we  trust  it  will  be,  it  will  prove  growingly 
useful  and  attractive,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe.  The  promoters  of 
the  School,  chief  of  whom  has  been  Mrs.  Burnley  Campbell  of  Ormidale, 
who  has  so  well  filled  the  presidential  chair  of  An  Comunn  Gaidhealach 
during  the  past  two  years,  in  making  their  choice  of  situation,  kept  in  view, 
it  is  understood,  the  quality  of  the  common  Gaelic  speech  of  the  district  as 
one  of  the  determining  considerations.  They  very  properly  wished  to  go 
where  the  best  Gaelic  could  be  heard  about  them  every  day,  and  without 
asking  whether  they  could  have  made  some  other  equally  good  choice  or 
not,  it  may  safely  be  said  that  they  could  not  have  made  a  better.  Lochaber 
Gaelic  may  or  may  not  be  better  than  any  other  Gaelic ;  its  claim  to  be  as 
good  as  any  other  would  be,  we  believe,  impossible  to  impugn.  Like  every 
other  dialect,  however,  it  has  provincialisms  peculiar  to  itself.  These  are  by 
no  means  to  be  imitated,  and  learners  should  know  them  and  be  on  their 
guard  against  them. 

The  eighteenth  annual  Mod  of  An  Comunn  Gaidhealach  has  been  held 
this  year  at  Stirling  on  the  22nd,  23rd  and  24th  of  September.  New 
departures  have  been  a  concert  and  Gaelic  play  on  the  Thursday,  a  kilted 
procession  through  the  city,  preparatory  to  the  Grand  Concert  on  the 
Friday  and  the  holding  of  the  annual  business  meeting  on  the  Saturday  in 
place  of  on  the  Thursday.  The  concert  and  play  on  the  Thursday  was 
instituted  in  the  hope  that  it  would  lessen  the  demand  for  admission  to  the 
Grand  Concert,  but  though  sufficiently  successful  in  itself  it  had  no  appreci- 


BOOK  EE VIEWS  181 

able  results  of  the  kind  desired.  The  total  number  of  entries  this  year  has 
been  six  hundred  as  against  four  hundred  and  fifteen  last  year.  Encouraging 
as  this  increase  is,  it  is  felt  to  be  still  more  so  when  we  learn  that  it  consists 
mainly  in  an  increase  front  sixty-nine  last  year  to  two  hundred  and  thirty- 
one  this  year  in  the  junior  literary  competitions. 


BOOK  EEVIEWS 

Handbuch  des  AUirischen :  Graramaiik,  Texte  und  W'&rterbuch.     Von  RuDOLF 
Thurneysen.     Vol.  I. :  Grammatik.     Heidelberg,  1909. 

Students  have  long  desired  a  compendium  of  Old  Irish  Grammar  from 
the  hand  of  one  of  its  makers,  and  in  this,  the  most  complete  and  authori- 
tative handbook  that  has  appeared,  their  desire  is  attained. 

The  work  is  not  merely  a  well-ordered  collection  of  the  facts  of  Old  Irish 
grammar ;  very  much  of  it  is  deduced  from  the  author's  own  investigation,, 
while  of  the  rest  he  offers  an  exposition  and  interpretation  such  as  few 
could  give. 

The  practical  value  of  the  book  is  increased  by  exclusion  of  controversy 
and  superfluous  elements,  by  the  admirable  choice  of  examples,  and  by  the 
selective  nature  of  the  references  given.  The  book  is  full  of  philological 
value,  but  is  not  overloaded  with  philological  parallels.  Condensed  in  its 
six  hundred  pages  is  a  mass  of  information,  new  and  old,  illumined  by  the 
insight  and  experience  of  a  great  grammarian  and  Celtic  scholar  of  first 
magnitude. 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  author  combines  soundness  of  method  and  judg- 
ment with  exceptional  crispness  and  lucidity  of  language.  Frequent  cross- 
references  and  a  helpful  index  of  more  than  fifty  pages  facilitate  consultation 
of  the  work. 

The  scope  of  the  work  is  primarily  restricted  to  the  grammar  of  Old 
Irish.  This  method  has  many  advantages,  although  it  excludes  the  later 
history  of  the  syntax  of  the  language  ;  a  subject  upon  which  the  student  of 
the  modern  tongue  would  gladly  have  been  instructed.  As  it  is,  the  sec- 
tions dealing  with  syntax  are  of  peculiar  value.  Some  one  hundred  and 
forty  pages  deal  with  the  inflection  of  the  verb,  in  which  Professor  Thur- 
neysen is  at  home.     There  is  a  useful  chapter  upon  loan-words. 

The  second  volume  will  contain  texts,  notes,  and  vocabulary. 

A.  O.  A. 

The  Bretons  at  Home.     By  Frances  M.  Gostling.     With  an  Introduction 
by  Anatole  le  Braz.     London :  Methuen  and  Co. 

Sadly  we  hear  of  the  changes  that  are  gradually  taking  place  in  the 
more  accessible  parts  of  Brittany  to-day,  but,  in  her  motor-car,  and  with  the 
name  of  M.  Anatole  le  Braz  as  an  Open  Sesame  to  the  cave  of  the  Ancient 


182  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Treasures  of  Armorica  on  her  lips,  Mrs.  Gostling  has  had  access  where  the 
ordinary  tourist  is  denied,  and  has  made  the  best  of  her  exceptional  oppor- 
tunities. "Where  the  spirit  stays  her,  she  stays,  and  chance  and  a  lively 
curiosity  bring  her  many  charming  adventures  and  conversations,  described 
in  a  style  and  with  a  sympathy  that  raise  the  book  far  above  the  level  of 
the  ordinary  traveller's  tale.  With  great  reverence  the  author  describes  the 
childlike  faith,  mediaeval  in  its  serious  simplicity,  so  characteristic  of  this 
ancient  people,  whose  manners  and  individuality  have  been  preserved  even 
to  this  day  in  the  remoter  parts  of  the  peninsula  by  the  jealous  arms  of  the 
sea  and  of  poverty.  Back  through  a  mist  of  centuries  we  are  led  to  a  land 
where  Christian  saints  and  their  festivals  and  the  gods  and  goddesses  of  a 
more  ancient  religion  become  inextricably  confused.  In  a  land  where  the 
latest  century  is  the  fourteenth,  where  a  motor-car  is  an  unpardonable 
anachronism,  we  hear  old  legends  of  the  generous  Arthur  'engaged  in 
hunting  wild  dragons  and  great  beasts,'  and  we  wander  amongst  tombs 
where  still  the  spirits  of  ancient  Aryan  chiefs  may  dwell.  It  is  a  land 
peopled  with  ghosts  and  shadows  and  teeming  with  stories  of  the  saints  and 
their  miracles.  Their  names  make  sweet  symphonies:  Yves,  the  great 
popular  saint,  Guennol6,  the  blind  St.  Herv6,  *  the  son  of  a  Christian  poet 
and  a  Druid  priestess,'  Tryphina  and  Gildas  the  Wise,  the  Maker  of  Bells. 
To  those  saints,  whose  shrines,  according  to  the  accommodating  policy  of  the 
early  missionaries,  have  superseded  those  of  the  gods  and  goddesses  of  a 
more  ancient  religion,  do  the  Bretons  pray,  and  if  they  fail  they  have  been 
known  to  go  elsewhere.  While  making  inquiries  about  the  Venus  of 
Quinipili,  Mrs.  Gostling  was  told  the  following  story.  *.  .  .  They  have  been 
married  fifteen  years,  and  no  children,  not  even  a  girl.  ...  At  last  my 
sister-in-law  said,  "  There  is  only  one  thing  more  we  can  do ;  we  will  visit 
the  Groac'h  Honard  ! "  My  brother  was  averse  to  the  idea,  but  what  will 
you  when  the  saints  turn  a  deaf  ear  and  refuse  to  listen  1  It  was  not  the 
fault  of  my  sister-in-law ;  she  had  been  everywhere,  even  to  Sainte  Anne 
de  la  Palude  in  the  Finisterre  ...  she  had  worn  her  feet  bare  with  her 
pilgrimages,  for  she  is  very  devout  ...  0  madame,  she  did  not  pray! 
My  sister-in-law  would  never  think  of  praying  save  to  the  Blessed  Virgin 
or  to  the  Saints  ...  I  do  not  bestow  my  approval  on  such  practices.  Yet 
in  the  case  of  my  sister-in-law  who  is  so  devout  .  .  .  and  who  is  besides 
80  rich — well,  madame, — even  the  saints  cannot  blame  her;  they  should 
have  attended  to  her  wants  themselves  ! ' 

It  is  the  seriousness  of  the  Bretons  that  is  their  most  remarkable  quality. 
Amongst  a  population  of  fishermen  the  presence  of  death  must  be  constant, 
but  the  Bretons  keep  Death  literally  in  their  midst,  for  they  cluster  their 
village  round  the  cemetery,  *  they  love  to  have  their  dead  where  they  can 
watch  their  graves  from  their  windows,'  and  formerly,  even  in  the  churches, 
there  were  statues  of  Death,  to  which  prayers  were  offered  either  to  spare  a 
friend  or  for  a  less  estimable  purpose.  This  deep  feeling  of  seriousness 
penetrates  not  only  their  worship  in  churches  but  also  their  weddings  and 


F 

F  dances  to 


BOOK  REVIEWS  183 


dances  to  which  they  bring  a  religious  fervour.  '  Never  have  I  seen  such 
dancing,  or  heard  such  maddening,  frenzied  music.  It  made  one  think  of 
these  pipes  and  flutes  that  led  the  Bacchanalian  revels.  .  .  .  There  was  no 
fun,  no  laughter,  no  refreshments  .  .  .  the  serious  faces  of  the  dancers  as 
they  rushed  and  leapt  about  belonged  to  some  bygone  age.'  .  .  . 

The  beautiful  illustrations  in  colour  by  Gaston  Fanty  Lescure  and  the 
interesting  photographs  add  greatly  to  the  charm  of  the  book  and  to  its 
usefulness.  G.  M.  Colvin. 

Gaelic  Songs  for  Schools.     ^Am  Bru-dliearg'     Stirling :  Mackay. 

We  have  received  from  Mr.  E.  Mackay,  Stirling,  an  excellent  little  book 
of  Gaelic  songs  for  schools  entitled  The  Rohin,  price  2s.  It  is  arranged  in  two- 
part  harmony  by  C.  H.  M'Kay  and  is  edited  by  Mr.  M.  M'Farlane.  It  forms 
one  of  a  series  in  which  The  Blackbird  (Parts  I.  and  II.)  and  The  Mavis  have 
already  appeared.  The  earlier  booklets,  by  the  same  editor,  are  widely 
known,  and  have  proved  useful  in  Highland  schools,  and  in  preparing 
children  for  the  Mod  Competitions.  The  latest  arrival.  The  Robin,  ^Am  Bru- 
dhearg\  contains  as  interesting  a  selection  of  melodies  and  beautiful  airs  as 
any  of  the  others,  and  deserves  to  obtain  a  large  circulation.  It  contains  a 
number  of  the  Action  Songs  once  so  popular  in  the  Highlands  as  well  as 
other  pieces,  some  of  which  have  not  been  easily  accessible  hitherto.  The 
book  is  worth  having  were  it  only  for  the  songs  Oidhche  mhath  leibh  and 
Oran  Dealachaidh.  But  we  think  the  air  set  to  An  Uid  thu  learn,  a  rlghinn 
hg  is  a  comparatively  flat  and  spiritless  version,  not  to  be  compared  with 
that  which  is  usually  sung  to  these  words.  Additional  value  would  be 
given  to  these  booklets  if  the  editor  in  future  editions  could  add  a  page  of 
notes  giving  explanations  of  references  and  remote  allusions  in  the  old 
traditional  and  historical  songs,  where  such  are  required  for  a  clear  grasp  of 
the  meaning  of  the  text.  Otherwise  some  of  the  allusions  will  certainly  be 
obscure  to  children,  and  probably  to  the  teachers  also,  with  the  result  that 
the  expression  and  rendering  of  the  song  will  be  unintelligent.  With  the 
help  of  a  few  notes  these  song-books  might  well  be  used  as  poetry  readers 
in  schools  as  well  as  for  vocal  purposes.  Many  of  the  songs  are  gems  of 
poetry.  A  paragraph  descriptive  of  the  habits  of  the  Robin  appears  on  one 
page  in  Gaelic  as  a  quotation  from  the  Highland  News  and  later  it  is  given 
in  English  as  a  quotation  from  the  Scotsman !  The  reader  is  left  to  find  out 
by  the  exercise  of  literary  criticism  in  which  language  the  extract  originally 
appeared.  In  Key  Signatures  Bb  constantly  occurs  for  Bt>.  This  is  either 
a  printer's  emergency  or  an  ugly  innovation. 

With  regard  to  the  two-part  harmony  arrangements,  we  are  surprised 
to  find  open  fifths  so  frequently  used  at  the  close  of  a  cadence,  and  even  in 
the  last  note  of  the  tune.  Though  permissible  in  the  course  of  a  phrase, 
their  appearance  in  a  cadence,  without  the  third  of  the  root,  is  certainly 
objectionable.  The  second  part  writing  rarely  has  any  melodic  interest, 
and  thereby  loses  much  of  its  usefulness  for  class  singing.  M.  N.  M. 


184  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Musical    Instruments.      Part     II.       English    and    Irish    Instruments,     by 
R.  B.  Armstrong.     Edinburgh  :  T,  and  A.  Constable.  Price  £2  net 

The  second  part  of  Mr.  Armstrong's  great  work  on  Musical  Instruments  has 
been  issued.  The  first  part  is  well  known  to  students  of  Celtic  music  as  the 
most  complete  and  elaborate  modern  study  of  the  Irish  and  Highland 
Harps,  a  sumptuous  and  magnificent  volume  which  was  received  with 
general  approval  five  years  ago.  This  volume  follows  up  the  development 
of  stringed  instruments  of  the  Harp  family  down  to  the  beginning  of  last 
century.  The  author  deals  in  minutest  detail  with  the  construction  and 
musical  capabilities  of  various  obsolete  instruments  such  as  the  Dital  Harp, 
Egan's  Harp,  and  the  Harp  Ventura.  The  appeal  of  the  work  is  mainly  to 
the  musical  Antiquarian  and  not  directly  to  the  student  of  Celtic  music, 
except  in  so  far  as  it  shows  how  ancient  Irish  music  had  to  surrender 
to  modern  tonality  by  the  introduction  of  modulating  keys  for  the  full 
chromatic  scale.  It  is  most  interesting  to  trace  this  development,  through 
various  forms  of  ingenious  and  complicated  mechanism  applied  to  the  small 
harp,  until  we  reach  the  final  stage  of  the  modern  Pedal  Harp.  The  present 
volume  is  got  up  in  excellent  style  by  Messrs.  Constable.  The  plates  that 
illustrate  the  text  are  exquisitely  beautiful.  We  have  not  seen  finer 
examples  of  modern  photographic  art  reproduction.  The  pictures  are  soft 
yet  minutely  detailed  without  any  of  the  hardness  and  excessive  contrast 
often  seen  in  photographs  of  such  difficult  subjects  as  old  instruments.  The 
book  owes  much  to  the  fine  technical  skill  of  the  artistic  craftsman,  as  well 
as  to  the  research,  learning,  and  thorough  mastery  of  detail  of  the  author. 

Only  a  specialist  can  adequately  review  the  mass  of  detail  contained  in 
this  book ;  we  can  only  say  that  the  author  wins  the  reader's  confidence  by 
the  clearness  of  his  style  and  the  convincing  character  of  his  exposition  of 
intricate  technical  details.  Any  one  who  is  fortunate  enough  to  possess  one  of 
the  old  instruments  described  in  the  text  will  find  everything  he  needs  to 
know  here  regarding  stringing  the  instrument,  scales,  manipulation,  and  the 
possibilities  and  limitations  of  the  various  types.  To  some  the  study  of 
ancient  musical  instruments  has  a  peculiar  and  fascinating  charm.  Long 
years  ago  these  instruments  expressed  in  sweet  music  the  language  of 
human  passion  and  old  romance,  though  the  fingers  that  touched  the  strings 
are  now  mouldering  in  the  dust.  Mr.  Armstrong  gives  numerous  specimens 
of  music  written  for  these  old  instruments.  For  a  long  time  to  come  this 
will  be  the  standard  work  on  the  subject.  M.  N.  M. 

Songs   of  the  Hebrides.    By  Marjory  Kennedy  Eraser  :  Gaelic  Editor, 

Kenneth  M'Leod. 
Messrs.  Boosey  and  Co.,  London,  now  publish  the  above  work  in  complete 
form,  bound  in  one  handsome  volume,  at  the  price  of  one  guinea.  We  have 
in  a  former  number  of  the  Celtic  Review  referred  to  the  very  high  quality  of 
Mrs.  Kennedy  Eraser's  work  when  reviewing  several  copies  of  the  songs 
issued  in  separate  parts.     The  volume  as  a  whole  more  than  confirms  our 


BOOK  EEVIEWS  185 

earlier  impressions.  It  is  a  most  valuable  interpretation  not  only  of  Celtic 
music  but  of  the  true  inwardness  of  the  life  and  manner  of  thought  and 
feeling  of  the  people  of  the  Isles.  All  Highlanders,  and  parti- 
cularly all  Islanders,  who  *use  this  work  will  feel  that  they  owe  a  debt  of 
gratitude  to  the  Editors  for  the  technical  skill,  musical  and  literary  talent, 
and  loving  enthusiasm  they  have  put  into  their  work.  The  result  of  their 
toil  is  a  treat  of  a  high  order  to  all  who  have  an  interest  in  Celtic 
music  and  the  Celtic  people.  Not  since  Dr.  Carmichael's  Carmina  Gadelica 
appeared  has  there  issued  from  the  press  such  a  sympathetic  and  intelligent 
interpretation  of  the  folk-lore  and  music  of  the  ancient  kingdom  of  the 
Hebrides. 

Mrs.  Kennedy  Fraser  writes  an  Introduction  describing  in  charming 
English  her  interesting  experiences  in  the  work  of  collecting  airs.  Her 
Essay  on  the  Hebridean  scales  is  full  of  illuminating  suggestion  and 
pregnant  thought, — the  work  of  a  true  musician.  Its  value  educationally 
is  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  it  illustrates  itself  by  reference  to  the  songs  in 
the  book.  These  are  classified  according  to  scale.  She  suggests  that  the 
Pentatonic  scales  of  the  Scots  folk-tonality,  nowhere  else  found  except  in 
the  Far  East,  may  have  come  to  Scotland  through  the  Finnish  or  Mongolian 
mound-dwellers.  Lowland  music  assimilated  these  from  the  Highland,  the 
more  ancient  art  culture.  She  has  discovered  in  the  Islands  irregular  time 
rhythms  never  pointed  out  before  so  far  as  we  know,  as  in  the  remarkable 
version  of  I  hu  o  leiginn  (Killin  Collection)  entitled  Milking  Croon  and  set  in 
J  time.  It  is  a  striking  fact  that  Finnish  music  is  also  partial  to  irregular 
rhythms  with  five  beats  to  the  bar.  Mrs.  Kennedy  Fraser  also  gives  a  most 
curious  waulking  song  which  balances  fives  with  threes  (p.  161),  i.e.  |-  and  f 
time  in  alternate  bars.  She  truly  remarks  on  the  perfect  feeling  for 
rhythm  in  the  Western  Isles  that  comes  apparently  from  a  life-long 
association  of  music  and  labour. 

Regarding  the  existence  of  scales  whose  tone  intervals  vary  from  the 
diatonic,  her  conclusion  is  that  as  sung  by  the  people  these  scales  '  difi'er 
slightly  from  anything  we  can  convey  by  any  system  of  notation  as  yet  in 
use.'  Thus  some  sacrifice  of  character  is  unavoidable  when  we  note  them  down 
in  the  usual  way.  But  she  thinks  that  a  suitable  accompaniment  can  to 
some  extent  compensate  for  this  loss  by  emphasising  characteristic  features, 
even  though  it  is  true,  as  Abdy  Williams  has  said,  that  '  to  add  harmony 
to  an  ancient  melody  is  practically  to  produce  a  modern  composition  on  an 
ancient  foundation.' 

The  accompaniments  in  the  book  are  of  great  originality,  beauty,  and  fit- 
ness. The  work  as  a  whole  will  do  more  to  give  Celtic  folk-song  an  assured 
position  in  the  art  world  than  any  that  have  yet  appeared. 

The  work  of  the  Gaelic  editor  calls  for  more  than  a  passing  word  of 
commendation.  A  collector  himself,  he  has  given  freely  of  his  store  of 
molodies  and  has  also  fitted  original  verses  of  excellent  quality  to  several 
songs  when  the  original  words  obtainable  were  merely  'mutilated  frag- 
ments.'   His  prose  articles  scattered  throughout  the  book  illuminate  and  ex- 


186  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

plain  the  songs  and  the  conditions  among  which  they  arose.  They  show  a 
fine  mastery  of  the  English  tongue,  and  reveal  a  new  and  brilliant  writer  on 
Celtic  themes  from  whom  much  may  yet  be  expected.  Mr.  M'Lood's  first 
article  in  the  Celtic  Reiiew  some  time  ago  on  the  subject  of  sea-songs  strongly 
attracted  our  attention.  A  new  and  individual  note  was  struck  ;  here  was  a 
man  with  a  voice  of  his  own  and  no  echo  of  others.  Mr.  M'Leod  is  a  writer 
who  possesses  the  magic  of  style.  All  he  writes  passes  through  fires  of  a 
living  personality  and  is  transfused  with  a  passionate  love  for  the  dear 
people  of  the  isles  whose  inner  life  he  knows  so  well.  He  has  many  of  the 
qualities  that  gave  charm  to  the  writings  of  the  late  Fiona  M'Leod.  He 
possesses  the  same  wonderful  insight  into  the  psychology  of  the  primitive 
mind,  and  if  there  is  '  gloom '  sometimes,  it  is  real  human  sorrow  and  no 
melodramatic  affair — the  sorrow  of  the  mourners  who  wait  at  home  for  those 
that  sailed  away  on  the  sea  but  now  return  no  more.  His  essay  on  the 
'  Sea  Sorrow '  is  a  very  fine  piece  of  work. 

What  songs  are  these  !  Songs  of  sorrow,  and  of  rapture  too,  songs  of  the 
sea  and  of  the  soil,  of  birth  and  of  death  and  of  love.  Contrast  them  with 
the  modern  drawing-room  song,  the  only  song  that  sells  nowadays.  There 
is  little  or  no  poetry  in  their  words,  any  sort  of  piffle  will  do  if  it  suits  the 
music.  Literary  hacks  provide  them  ad  lib.  for  the  musical  composer.  But 
the  songs  of  the  Hebrides — they  enshrine  history  and  are  full  of  imagina- 
tion and  real  human  passion.  If  they  are  not  poetry,  we  do  not  know 
where  poetry  is  to  be  found. 

Miss  Fanny  Tolmie  has  contributed  several  fine  airs  to  the  collection. 
There  is  a  wonderful  funeral  chant  entitled  An  Cronan  Bais,  given  by  Mr. 
K.  M'Leod,  containing  an  air  that  some  have  been  hunting  for  vainly  for  a 
long  time.  In  Lewis  the  same  words  (probably  of  pre-Reformation  origin) 
were  sung  long  ago  to  the  tune  '  The  Campbells  are  coming '  in  slow  time. 

Ailean  Donn  is  a  notable  song  full  of  the  most  poignant  feeling,  'a 
beautiful  song — sore  to  sing  but  seven  times  sorer  to  feel,'  says  Mr.  M'Leod. 
The  whole  romantic  story  of  the  song  may  be  found  in  Fionn's  NaigheacMan 
Firinnechj  Part  ii.  p.  29.  We  trust  that  Mod  singers,  and,  perhaps,  Irish 
singers  also,  may  take  up  and  popularise  many  of  these  songs  in  their  native 
Gaelic.  The  separate  parts  we  believe  are  still  available.  Mrs.  Kennedy  Fraser, 
with  great  fitness,  dedicates  the  work  to  the  women  of  the  Hebrides,  *  who 
were  not  only  skilled  in  the  spinning  and  weaving  of  fine  linen  and  in  the 
curious  arts  of  the  dyer  but  who  sang  at  their  work,  and,  singing,  fashioned  for 
themselves  songs  that  are  as  rich  in  colour  as  the  wools  they  steeped  in  lichen 
and  heather,  and  as  curious  in  construction  as  the  tartans  they  designed, 
and  subtle  too  at  times  as  the  interlacements  of  Celtic  illuminative  art.' 

Well  do  the  women  of  the  Isles  deserve  such  an  appreciation.  In  all  pro- 
bability the  majority  of  the  songs  in  this  book  were  made  by  women.  But 
more  than  singers  they  are  toilers,  very  often  the  chief  support  of  the  poor 
homes  in  which  they  live,  but  always  simple-hearted,  kindly,  and  singing 
toilers.     At  home  their  work  is  chiefly  spinning,  weaving,  cultivating  the 


BOOK  REVIEWS  187 

Troft,  and  ordinary  domestic  work.  But  now  many  of  them  cross  the  sea  in 
thousands  and  take  places  as  domestic  servants  in  the  South,  winning  respect 
and  regard  for  themselves  and  the  Highlands  from  which  they  come  in  many 
Lowland  homes.  They  ate  a  greater  influence  than  we  imagine  in  bringing 
North  and  South  together  in  terms  of  mutual  understanding  and  appreciation. 
Seldom  do  these  girls  forget  to  send  part  of  their  earnings  to  the  support  of 
the  old  home  in  far-away  Uist  or  Lewis.  Or  it  may  be  that  some  prefer  the 
short  but  remunerative  period  of  toil  at  herring  curing  to  absence  from 
home  during  the  whole  year.  In  hundreds  at  a  time  they  migrate  to  Yarmouth 
or  Grimsby  or  Peterhead  as  herring  girls,  sober  and  industrious  always, 
cheerfully  toiling  at  the  most  disagreeable  of  trades,  that  they  may  bring 
home  their  wages  to  help  their  parents,  and  at  times  even  their  brothers,  to 
support  existence  in  the  poor  boggy  crofts  at  home.  Some  of  them  bring 
home  more  money  to  the  croft  than  the  men-folk  can  earn  in  cash  during 
the  whole  year.  We  remember  on  one  occasion  seeing  five  hundred  of  these 
Hebridean  women  crowd  on  board  the  Stornoway  steamer  on  their  way  to 
the  fishing-stations.  They  were  so  closely  packed  and  crowded  on  deck  that 
one  could  hardly  move  without  stepping  over  their  bodies.  There  was  no 
shelter  of  any  kind  to  protect  them  from  rain  or  cold.  Fortunately  for 
themselves  they  were  inured  to  exposure.  Uncomplainingly  they  sat  or 
reclined  on  the  decks  singing  Gaelic  airs  at  intervals,  while  sometimes  an 
old  Psalm  tune  such  as  Stornoway  rose  clear  and  high  on  the  night  air. 
'  What  a  shame  it  is  that  these  girls  are  not  better  treated  ! '  said  one  to  your 
reviewer.    *  They  are  the  mainstay  of  the  Island.'  M.  N.  MuNRO. 

An  Introduction  to  Early  Welsh.  By  the  late  John  Strachan,  LL.D., 
Professor  of  Greek  and  Lecturer  in  Celtic  in  the  University  of 
Manchester.     Manchester  :  At  the  University  Press,  1909. 

The  science  of  language,  and  that  of  the  Celtic  languages  in  particular, 
suffered  a  very  severe  blow  through  the  passing  away  of  the  late  Professor 
Strachan,  for  he  combined  a  capacity  for  the  most  unremitting  and 
laborious  industry  with  a  broad  survey  of  the  development  of  the  Indo- 
European  languages  generally,  and  the  power  of  presenting  the  knowledge 
which  he  gained  in  a  highly  systematic  and  lucid  form.  The  present 
volume  bears  throughout  the  impress  of  his  mind  and  character.  Welsh- 
men everywhere,  both  in  Wales  and  outside  Wales,  will  rejoice  that  the 
Welsh  tongue  should  have  been  so  lovingly  studied  by  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  of  modern  philologists,  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  present 
work,  if  a  knowledge  of  it  reaches  their  ears,  will  have  a  good  moral  effect 
upon  those  misguided  Welshmen  who  ever  tend  to  depreciate  their  native 
tongue  and  its  literature.  It  is  a  thousand  pities  that  Professor  Strachan 
did  not  live  to  write  a  grammar,  not  of  mediaeval  Welsh  only,  but  of  the 
noble  living  tongue  of  to-day,  which  is  far  richer  in  the  hands  of  a  master 
than  even  the  copious  language  of  Wales  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Nothing 
has  helped  the  Celtic  languages  so  much  in  modern  times  in  the  eyes  of  the 


188  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

reading  public,  both  in  Wales  and  without,  as  the  fact  that  they  are 
sometimes  studied  by  hard-headed  Scotsmen  and  Germans,  and  it  is  not 
impossible  that  Welshmen  may  yet  see  the  day  when  Welsh  philology  will 
be  as  respectable  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  as  Welsh  geology.  In  the  case 
of  Professor  Strachan  Welsh  was  learnt  late  in  life,  but  he  already  possessed 
a  singularly  minute  knowledge  of  the  older  phases  of  Irish.  He  was  thus 
able  to  learn  quickly  those  Welsh  words  and  forms  which  have  Irish 
cognates,  and  also  to  see  parallelisms  in  construction  in  the  important  field 
of  Celtic  syntax.  Into  the  framework  already  constructed  for  him  through 
his  knowledge  of  Irish  he  fitted  the  facts  of  Welsh  mediaeval  grammar,  as 
they  came  into  the  field  of  his  observation,  and  thus,  through  systematic 
reading  and  investigation,  he  was  able  to  make  his  own  version  of  Welsh 
mediaeval  grammar  available  for  others.  The  result  is  a  volume  which 
gives  a  most  useful  and  lucid  account  of  the  Welsh  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
which,  moreover,  allows  the  reader  a  glimpse  of  the  principles  that  have 
governed  its  development.  As  a  record  of  forms  this  grammar  is,  within 
the  range  of  Welsh  literature  studied  by  its  author  for  the  purpose, 
singularly  complete.  It  is  the  grouping  together,  without  making  the 
necessary  distinction  between  them,  of  normal  and  abnormal  forms  that  is 
its  least  satisfactory  feature,  but,  had  the  author  lived  to  issue  a  second 
edition,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  in  the  light  of  his  wider  reading  he  would 
have  remedied  this  defect.  Another  direction,  too,  in  which  Welsh 
mediaeval  grammar  might  be  advanced  beyond  the  present  work  is  that  of 
inquiring  into  the  differences  between  the  Welsh  of  the  twelfth,  thirteenth, 
fourteenth,  and  fifteenth  century  as  shown  in  the  various  documents,  both 
prose  and  verse,  which  have  come  down  to  us,  and  carefully  tabulating  the 
facts  for  each  stage.  An  important  subdivision  would  be  the  study  of 
Welsh  orthography  in  its  various  phases  and  scribal  traditions  during  the 
same  period.  The  thirteenth  century  MSS.  of  Geofl*rey's  Bruty  Brenhinoedd, 
for  example,  are  especially  deserving  of  careful  study  in  this  connection,  as 
they  contain  forms  which  have  not  yet  been  included  in  any  treatise  on 
Welsh  mediaeval  grammar.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  work  now  in  question 
will  be  a  stimulus  to  Welshmen  and  others  to  pursue  the  scientific  study  of 
the  Welsh  tongue,  a  language  which  is  no  mere  patois  or  barbarous  jargon, 
but  which  has  been  moulded  by  all  those  forces  of  mind  and  taste,  that 
have  shaped  all  the  nobler  forms  of  human  speech.  Wales  will  long  bear  in 
grateful  remembrance  the  work  of  one  who,  though  a  stranger,  was  second 
to  none  of  her  sons  in  his  love  for  her  ancient  tongue.  E.  Anwyl. 

Welsh  Mediceval  Law,  being  a  text  of  the  Laws  of  Howel  the  Good,  namely,  the 
British  Harleian  MS.  4353  of  the  thirteenth  century,  with  transla- 
tion, introduction,   appendix,  glossary,  index  and  a  map.      By  A. 
W.  Wade-Evans,  Jesus  College  [Oxford].    Oxford :  At  the  Clarendon 
Press,  1909. 
In  publishing  the  present  volume  of  fFelsh  Mediceval  Law,  the  Rev.  A. 
W.  Wade-Evans  has  rendered  very  real  service,  not  only  to  students  of 
early   Welsh  institutions,  but  also  to  students   of   Welsh   language   and 


BOOK  REVIEWS  189 

literature.  The  prose  writings  of  Wales  in  the  thirteenth  century,  as  they 
ire  almost  entirely  in  MS.,  are  known  but  imperfectly,  and  the  full  history 
of  the  Welsh  language  itself  cannot  be  written  until  they  are  carefully 
investigated.  It  is  chiefly,  however,  by  students  of  Welsh  law  and  social 
institutions  that  the  service  now  rendered  by  Mr.  Wade-Evans  will  be 
welcomed,  since  he  has  given  a  faithful  copy  of  the  text  of  one  of  the 
earliest  MSS.  of  the  laws  of  Wales,  and  also  a  very  careful  and  readable 
translation  thereof.  The  introductory  classification  of  the  legal  MSS.  of 
Wales  will  also  be  of  great  service,  and  similarly  the  Appendix  explaining 
the  general  relation  of  the  four  earliest  texts.  The  Glossary,  too,  will  be 
found  very  helpful  by  all  students  of  early  Welsh  social  life,  and  there  is 
also  a  very  full  Index.  The  leaves  that  are  missing  in  Harleian  MS.  4353  have 
been  supplied  from  the  British  Museum  MS.  Cleopatra  A.  xiv.,  which  Mr. 
Wade-Evans  regards  as  the  most  allied  MS.  extant  of  the  same  class.  There 
is  also  an  historical  introduction,  whose  aim  is  to  present  a  picture  of  post- 
Roman  Britain,  presumably  in  order  to  explain  the  formation  of  that  social 
organisation  of  Wales  which  is  represented  in  the  Laws.  This  is  an 
extremely  obscure  subject,  and  it  is  impossible  to  deal  with  it  within  the 
limits  of  this  review.  Mr.  Wade-Evans  rightly  holds  that  the  '  men  of  the 
North'  spoke  British,  but  it  cannot  be  assumed  that  'gwlad,'  in  the  term 
'gwledig,'  necessarily  refers  to  territory.  The  Welsh  word  'gwlad'  has 
for  its  Goidelic  cognate  the  Irish  flaith,  rule,  and  in  the  Welsh  word 
'  gwledychu  '  we  have  a  word  meaning  '  to  rule '  without  any  suggestion 
necessarily  of  rule  over  a  territory.  It  is  not  at  all  certain  that  the  term 
*  gwledig '  meant  the  holder  of  an  office  that  was  once  Roman,  though  this 
is  certainly  not  impossible.  The  whole  subject  of  the  relation  of  Wales  to 
Roman  rule  is  one  that  is  now  acquiring  fresh  interest  through  the  excava- 
tion of  Roman  sites  in  Wales.  The  recent  discoveries  at  Gelligaer  in 
Glamorganshire,  at  Llidiart  Ysbytty  near  Portmadoc  in  Carnarvonshire,  at 
Caersws  in  Montgomeryshire  (by  Professor  R.  C.  Bosanquet),  and  at  Caerleon 
are  gradually  opening  up  a  new  vista  of  Welsh  life  in  Roman  times, 
especially  in  relation  to  the  lead  and  copper  mining  of  the  country.  There 
are  other  Roman  sites,  too,  of  considerable  interest,  which  have  either  been 
excavated,  or  are  likely  to  be  excavated,  in  the  near  future.  The  study  of 
the  Latin  element  in  Welsh  (on  the  lines  of  the  admirable  work  of  M.  Loth) 
both  in  the  ordinary  vocabulary  of  the  language  and  in  proper  names,  and 
the  similar  study  of  the  Latin  element  in  Irish  (on  the  foundation  of 
M.  Vendryes's  brilliant  work),  ought,  if  systematically  carried  out,  to  prove 
of  the  greatest  service  in  the  study  of  this  subject.  In  this  connection  also 
it  is  well  to  note  the  importance  of  the  forms  taken  by  the  earliest  stratum 
of  Biblical  proper  names  in  Welsh  such  as  Adda,  Afel,  Yfream,  lago,  etc., 
in  their  bearing  on  the  question  of  the  date  of  the  introduction  of  Christianity 
into  Britain.  Mr.  Wade-Evans  is  probably  right  in  his  avoidance  of  the 
term  '  tribe '  in  connection  with  the  Welsh  social  system,  in  spite  of  the 
undoubtedly  tribal  character  in  its  origin  of  the  social  order  of  the  Celts, 


190  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

because  in  Wales  the  earlier  clan-system  probably  underwent,  in  certain 
districts  at  any  rate,  very  considerable  modifications  in  Roman  and  post- 
Roman  times,  and,  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge,  it  is  far  from  safe 
to  dogmatise  concerning  it.  It  is  not  improbable,  too,  that  the  Welsh 
genealogies  contain  evidence  of  great  value  for  those  who  have  the  necessary 
knowledge  and  skill  to  extract  it.  Careful  local  investigation,  also,  in  some 
of  the  districts  of  Wales  that  are  remotest  from  England,  such  as  Lleyn  in 
Carnarvonshire,  will,  even  now,  reveal  traces  of  the  older  system  of  land- 
tenure,  as  it  existed  in  the  period  when  the  laws  of  Wales  were  dominant. 
Such  terms  as  cyfar  (joint  ploughing)  found  in  the  Laws  themselves,  are 
significant  as  to  the  prevalence  of  '  co-tillage  '  in  earliest  times.  Side  by  side 
with  the  present  volume  it  would  be  well  to  read  Professor  Vinogradoft's 
Growth  of  the  Manor,  and  the  late  Fustel  de  Coulanges's  work  on  Roman  and 
Post-Roman  Gaul.  A  careful  study  of  the  Welsh  Laws  themselves,  too, 
suggests  that  a  very  considerable  amount  of  the  matter  in  them  goes  back 
to  pre-Christian  times,  and  reflects  a  tone  of  society,  whose  Christianisation 
was  institutional  rather  than  psychological.  The  survival  in  mediaeval 
legend  of  such  ideas  as  that  of  '  annwf n '  {the  underworld),  as  well  as  certain 
social  features,  which  come  to  view,  for  example,  in  'Kulhwch  and 
Olwen,'  points  in  the  same  direction,  and  so,  from  the  ethnological  no  less 
than  the  sociological  standpoint,  the  Welsh  Laws  may  be  studied  with 
advantage.  It  may,  perhaps,  be  mentioned  that  among  the  terms  used 
in  Welsh  Law  are  two  that  are  of  English  origin,  namely,  'distain'  (=di8c 
thegn),  a  steward,  and  'edling'  (  =  etheling),  the  heir-apparent,  while  in 
Wales,  as  in  England,  terms  derived  from  personal  names  denoting  tracts 
of  country  often  ended  in  -ing,  as  Dunoding  (the  district  of  Dunod),  a 
district  in  South  Carnarvonshire  and  North  Merionethshire.  In  the  matter 
of  language  the  texts  now  under  consideration  contain  several  grammatical 
forms  of  interest,  and  appear  to  belong  to  the  same  orthographical  tradition 
as  the  Red  Book  of  Hergest,  but  at  an  earlier  stage.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
Mr.  Wade-Evans  will  receive  the  encouragement  which  he  deserves,  and 
that  he  will  publish  in  similar  form  others  of  the  ancient  documents  of 
Wales,  E.  Anwyl. 

NOTE 
The  Barons  of  Bachuill 

Having  read  with  great  interest  the  article  (Celtic  Review,  vol.  v.)  by  Dr. 
Alexander  Carmichael  on  the  'Barons  of  Bachuill,' in  the  Isle  of  Lismore, 
the  writer  offers  the  following  observations  upon  it,  and  for  the  reasons 
given  below  he  thinks  it  impossible  that  the  Livingstones  in  any  manner 
descended  from  the  Beatons,  who  were  the  hereditary  leeches  or  physicians 
to  the  Lords  of  the  Isles,  which  position  they  undoubtedly  occupied  during 
a  long  number  of  ages. 

If  Dr.  Carmichael  will  refer  to  the  Thanes  of  Cawdor,  p.  129,  he  will 
find  a  curious  bond  of  manrent,  by  the  terms  of  which  Sir  John  Campbell 


THE  BARONS  OF  BACHUILL       191 

of  Cawdor  received  the  fealty  and  homage  of  the  clan  M'Donleavis  (wrongly 
written  M'Dowleanis).  It  is  dated  16  August  1518,  and  it  is  stated  that 
the  oaths  were  taken  upon  '  Mess  buik '  (missal),  and  the  relic  callit  Ar- 
wachyll  (this  was  the  hachwill  of  S.  Moluag)  '  at  the  Isle  of  Kilmolrue.' 

Until  a  writer,  Rev.  Arch.  B.  Scott,  in  the  Scottish  Historical  Review 
for  April  1909,  p.  264,  in  the  course  of  an  article  of  high  merit  on  the 
famous  S.  Maelrubha,  drew  attention  to  the  subject,  and  identified  the 
site  of  this  small  island,  I  had  never  been  able  to  decide  where  it  lay.  It 
is  the  island  of  Eilean-an-t-sagairt  in  the  Lochanan  Dubh,  near  the  modern 
farmhouse  of  Kilvarie,  next  the  large  possessions  in  Muckairn  of  the 
Campbells  of  Calder,  Kilvarie  being  of  course  a  dedication  to  the  aforesaid 
S.  Maelrubha.  To  this  small  island  repaired  the  representatives  of  this  clan 
M'Donleavis  in  order  to  sign  the  deed.  The  signatories  are  Duncan  Brek 
M'dunlave  on  behalf  of  his  kin,  viz.  Duncan  M'du[n]lave  M'donchy  Iain 
m'donlave  m'donche  his  brother,  Donald  dow  m'douil  m'conehe  and  Neyll 
his  brother  and  Lachlan  M'Ewin  M'lachlen.  The  other  signatory  is  a 
certain  Ewin  M'Neill  on  behalf  of  his  kin,  viz.  Dunslave  M'Neill,  Iain  dow 
M'Neyll,  Duncan  M'Neyll  roy,  Niall  his  brother.  All  these  M'Neills  seem 
to  be  related  to  the  M'Dunslaves ;  vide  the  use  of  Dunslave  as  a  Christian 
name  by  one  of  them. 

Now  whilst  Livingstone  is  said  to  be  the  English  form  of  Mac-an-leigh, 
son  of  the  physician,  the  name  Mac-an-leigh  appears  itself  to  be  merely  a 
corruption  of  the  name  M'Dunsleibhe.  For  in  the  vassals  and  tenants 
names  in  the  old  Argyll  Rentals  there  is  evidence  of  not  only  the  D  but 
also  the  S  dropping  out  by  euphonistic  elision,  the  name  becoming  M'onlave 
and  M'Dunlave  and  M 'inlay,  etc.  In  one  document  I  have  found  the  name 
'Dunslave  M'Dunslave,'  clearly  showing  that  the  origin  of  the  surname  lay 
in  a  Christian  name.  The  clan  name  being  thus  derived  from  it  and  having 
nothing  to  do  with  any  physician. 

Of  the  use  of  the  name  Dunsleibhe,  etc.,  in  various  forms,  both  as  a 
Christian  and  a  surname,  I  append  a  few  examples,  and  would  like  to  point 
out  that  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  eponymic  progenitor  of  all  the  M'Dun- 
slaves,  Livingstones,  etc.,  may  be  the  one  who  is  known  to  have  been  the 
common  ancestor  of  the  Lamonts,  the  M'Ewens,  the  M'Lachlans,  and  the 
M'Sweens,  which  latter  clan  are  identical  with  the  supposed  lost  clan  of 
M'Ewan  of  Otter,  a  fact  wholly  unnoticed  in  a  brief  monograph  on  the 
Clan  Ewen  which  appeared  four  or  five  years  ago. 

James  the  son  of  Dunslaphe  had  a  grant  of  many  lands  in  Kintyre  from 
Robert  the  Bruce  (Robertson's  Index,  p.  26,  No.  15). 

On  1  March  1628  Arthur  Dunslea  'in  Inverary  '  was  warned  to  flit  and 
remove  by  Archibald,  Lord  Lome  (Argyll  MSS.). 

Circa  1640.  Dounslaife  odiman  held  6s.  8d.  worth  of  the  one  mark- 
land  of  Glenmoull  in  South  Kintyre  (Argyll  Rentals). 

28  Aug.  1693.  Dunslea  M'Queny  in  Eollasarie  in  Isle  of  Ulva  is  named 
in  a  Baron  Court  held  by  Sir  Colin  Campbell  of  Ardkinglass  at 
Aros  as  Bailie  for  Archibald,  10th  Earl  of  Argyll  (MSS.). 


192  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

In  1557  John  M'Dunslaif  in  Auchnacre  appears  on  record  in  the 
Tay mouth  '  Register,'  and  the  writer  in  Origines  Parochiales  notes 
that  it  appears  '  to  be  a  rare  surname.' 

Lastly,  on  28  April  1511  a  sasine  was  given  to  Sir  Donald  Makfadzen, 
precentor  of  Lismoir  Cathedral,  of  the  lands  of  '  Killendryst '  in  that  island 
by  a  certain  Gilbert  rewich  *  signifer '  (the  swarthy  or  brindled  standard- 
bearer),  who  acted  as  deputy  for  Archibald  2nd  Earl  of  Argyll,  so  clearly 
he  was  the  Livingstone  or  M'Duinslebhe  of  the  period,  and  was  in  all  pro- 
bability the  brother  of  the  Iver  who  appears  as  grandfather  of  '  Iain  son  of 
Maelmore  son  of  Iver,'  to  whom  the  1544  charter  of  the  custody  of  the  Great 
Bachuill  of  S.  Moluag  was  re-granted  by  Archibald,  4th  Earl  of  Argyll. 

Now  the  Barons  of  Bachuill  may  in  recent  years  have  had  some  tradition 
that  their  predecessors  exercised  medical  powers,  but  if  so  I  would  contend 
that  it  was  not  the  leechcraft  such  as  the  Beatons  exercised  for  the  Lords 
of  the  Isles,  or  the  O'conochers  of  Ardeoran  (in  Lome)  for  the  MacDougalls 
of  Dunolly  and  the  Campbells  of  Lochow.     But 

1 .  That  their  chief  occupation  appears  to  have  been  that  of  signifer  or 

standard-bearer  to  the  Earls  of  Argyll  and  their  predecessors. 

2.  That  with  this  privilege  went  the  yet  more  ancient  one  of  keeping 

and  guarding  the  pastoral  staff,  which  originally  was  in  all  likeli- 
hood itself  carried  into  battle  as  a  holy  charm  against  defeat. 
(Compare  the  accounts  of  the  Battle  of  the  Standard  and  the 
frequency  with  which  relics  were  used  for  this  purpose  in  the 
Irish  Annals.) 

3.  That  any  existing  tradition  about  the  exercise  of  medical  powers 

might  be  due  to  a  late  and  corrupt  rendering  of  their  surname 
into  Gaelic,  and  to  a  further  corruption  by  its  English  translation 
into  Livingstone. 

4.  Or  else  to  the  fact  that  the  Bachuill  was  itself  carried  about  as  a 

curative  relic  by  its  hereditary  keepers,  who,  in  performing  cures 

with  it,  would  naturally  receive  some  small  fee  fcrom  sick  people, 

who  were'^  at  that  time  blissfully  ignorant  of  how  to  best  poison 

themselves  by  'patent  medicines.' 

An  old  transcript  of  the  1544  charter  was  found  at  Inveraray  at  Easter 

1909  by  the  writer,  and  he  notices  one  or  two  small  mistakes  in  the  Latin 

as  giveu  to  Mr.   Carmichael.      Amongst  the  witnesses,  for  instance,  the 

M'Dougall  chiefs  should  be  John  M'Coul  of  Dunolly  and  John  M'Coul  of 

Karay,  not  Baray ;  the  latter  were  a  very  ancient  branch  from  Dunolly,  and 

the  second  of  the  land  names  should  be  Peynachallan,  which  probably  means 

Colins's  Penny  Land. 

An  examination  of  (the  Lismore  Parish  Registers  might  show  how 
recently  the  name  Dunsleve  or  Dunslaif  was  in  use  in  the  Livingstone  or 
other  families.  In  Ireland  a  similarly  named  clan  have  long  Anglicised 
their  name  to  Donlevy.  Niall  D.  Campbell. 


THE    CELTIC   REVIEW 

JANUARY  15,  1910 

ACCENTS,  APOSTROPHES,  AND  HYPHENS  IN 
SCOTTISH  GAELIC 

Professor  Mackinnon 

The  Gaelic  printed  page,  with  its  array  of  Accents,  Apos- 
trophes, and  Hyphens,  may  appear  picturesque  to  the  eye  in 
comparison  with  the  balder  English  page,  but  it  is  a  matter 
of  almost  insuperable  difficulty  for  author  and  printer  alike 
to  present  it  to  the  reader  in  perfectly  accurate  form. 
These  artificial  marks,  in  Gaelic  as  in  other  languages,  are, 
it  need  hardly  be  observed,  meant  for  the  guidance  of  the 
reader.  Gaelic -speaking  readers  will  always  have  a  greater 
heed  for  aids  of  this  kind  than  most,  and  especially  than 
English  readers.  We  speak  to  a  large  extent  in  phrases, 
and  as  long  as  we  continue  to  do  so,  there  will  be  a  clashing 
and  crushing  t)f  sounds  which  cannot  be  altogether  disre- 
garded by  us  in  writing  even  the  baldest  prose.  In  express- 
ing our  ideas  clearly  in  print,  we  shall  probably  always  be 
more  or  less  dependent  upon  such  advantage  as  devices  of 
this  sort  can  provide  for  us.  But  we  must  not  forget  that 
the  purpose  of  these  signs  is  to  aid  the  reader,  to  enable  him 
to  understand  more  clearly  the  meaning  of  the  writer. 
If  they  fail  of  their  purpose  they  are  not  merely  useless, 
they  are  hurtful.  While  it  may  be  vain  to  expect  that  we 
can  ever  do  away  entirely  with  our  Accents,  Apostrophes, 
and  Hyphens  any  more  than  with  our  Commas  and  Periods, 
it  is  worth  while,  perhaps,  inquiring  whether  on  the  lines 
of  the  mode  of  writing  Gaelic  aimed  at  in  the  best  edited 

VOL.  VI.  N 


194  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

texts,  such,  e.g.,  as  the  Gaelic  Scriptures,  we  could,  without 
prejudice  to  their  value  as  guides,  reduce  their  number  on 

-i)he  printed  page.     And  first  as  to  the  Accents. 

\  '  I.  The  Accent — The  Accent,  in  Gaelic  usage,  is  a  mark  to 
indicate  the  length  of  a  vowel.  It  would  have  been  in 
niany  ways  better  if  we  had  one  mark  to  indicate  quantity 
and  another  to  indicate  stress.  As  things  are,  in  writing 
Scottish  Gaelic,  we  make  use  of  two  aiccents,  the  Grave  (') 
and  the  Acute  (0,  as  they  are  called.  The  Acute  Accent  is 
ised  but  sparingly.  It  is  frequently  placed  over  the 
Preposition  a,  to 'distinguish,  presumably,  jbhe  open  sound  of 
ihe  vowel.  Fhtcair  mi  litir  a  Lunnainn,  '  I  had  a  letter  from 
lyondOB^  Occasionally,  but  in  ignorance,  when  the  same 
preposition  is  written  in  full,  as,  the  accent  is  still  put  upon 
the  a.  -* 

Apart  from  this  individual  case,  which  might  without 
great  loss  be  dispensed  with,  the  use  of  the  Acute  Accent  in 
Scottish  Gaelic  is  restricted  to  marking  one  of  the  sounds  of 
e  and  o.  As  all  readers  know,  these  two  Vowels  in  Scottish 
Gaelic  represent  each  two  separate  sounds,  not  merely  long 
and  short,  but  what  we  caU  open  and  close  sounds  :  e,  '  he,' 
but  (an)  de,  *  yesterday  '  ;  or,  '  gold,'  but  mor,  '  great.'  In 
actual  practice,  we  have  been  fairly  imif orm  and  correct  in 
indicating  the  long  e's  by  the  appropriate  accent.  The  case 
has  been  different  with  respect  to  the  o's>  although  the  differ- 
ence of  its  sounds  is  in  quality  as  marked  as  in  e.  Histori- 
cally the  close  o  has  come  to  be  marked  by  the  Acute  Accent 
cfcily  recently,  and  by  no  means  uniformly.  The  reason  pro- 
oably  is  that  in  the  case  of  e  the  two  sounds  are  fairly  con- 
sistent over  the  whole  Gaelic-speaking  area,  while  no  such 
uniformity  can  be  claimed  for  o.  Such  a  common  word  as 
oraUf  '  song,'  is  sounded  oran  in  one  locality  and  oran  in 
another.  It  may  be  added  that  the  best  and  most  careful 
Gaelic  poets  find  no  difficulty  in  making  the  two  sounds  of 
e,  as  also  those  of  o,  rhyxn<^  to.']jether,  ^heir  jusiification  being 
that,  to  the  Gaelic  ear,  harmony  of  sound.  -U  necessarily 
identity,   constitute;;!'  rhvme.      In  the  case  of   the  other 


ACCENTS,  APOSTEOPHES,  AND  HYPHENS     195 

vowels,  a,  i,  u,  the  Grave  Accent  alone  is  used  to  mark 
quantity. 

Three  questions  paay  be  asked  with  respect  to  the  use  of 
the  Accent.  The  first  is,  Should  we  not  get  rid  of  it  alto- 
gether, as  the  English  have  done  ?  This  would,  no  doubt, 
be  the  simplest  solution.  It  would  put  an  end  at  once  to 
all  our  difiiculties  and  blunders  in  connection  with  the  use  of 
it.  But  few  among  us,  I  imagine,  would  vote  for  the  total 
abolition  of  the  Accent  in  writing  Gaelic.  If  we  had  never 
had  it,  we  would  not  miss  it.  But  as  things  are  it  has  been 
of  advantage,  especially  to  the  young  reader,  as  a  guide ; 
and  the  Gael  has  ever  been  conservative  of  old  ways,  and 
not  the  less  so  in  his  literary  traditions. 

Assuming  that  the  Accent  is  to  be  retained  by  us,  we 
might  well  revert  to  the  rule  of  the  old  scholars,  and  place  it 
upon  all  long  vowels.  It  is  true  the  old  writers  never  rigidly 
adhered  to  their  own  rule  ;  but  the  fact  ought  not  to  pre- 
vent us  from  making  the  attempt.  We  have  advantages 
which  they  had  not.  They  wrote,  while  we  print.  The 
careful  reading  of  a  proof  ought  to  enable  us  to  adhere  very 
closely  to  so  simple  a  rule.  It  is  true  that  the  Phoneticians 
point  out  to  us  that  vowels  are  not  always  of  equal  length, 
but  the  obvious  fact  need  not  alarm  us.  Even  the  shortest 
of  long  syllables  is  ^  long  way  removed  from  the  short 
syllable  proper  ;  and  in  any  event  the  doubtful  cases  could 
be  codified.  Such  difficulties  as  would  confront  us  arise 
mainly  from  two  causes.  One  of  these  is  due  to  the  influ- 
ence which  the  shifting  of  the  stress  in  compound  words 
exerts  upon  the  quantity  of  a  vowel.  It  has  already  been 
pointed  out  how  the  dissyllable  mdthair,  '  mother,'  with  the 
first  syllable  long,  becomes  a  monosyllable,  and  short  at 
that,  When  joined  with  ceile,  '  companion,  spouse,'  not 
mdthair-cheile  but  meir-cheile.  So  occasionally  with  the 
prefixes.  The  negative  prefix  neo-,  as  we  now  write  it,  is 
short,  as  long  as  the  stress  remains  on  the  leading  word : 
neo-shalach,  '  undirty,'  i.e.  '  clean,  pure.'  But  if  the  stress  be 
shifted  to  the  prefix  the  syllable  is  sometimes  lengthened  : 


< 


196  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

neo-gJilan,  *  unclean,'  becomes  neoghlan.  So  the  short 
intensive  prefix  ro-  becomes  ro-  in  MacMhaighstir  Alastair's 
rO'Choill,  '  large  '  or  *  dense  wood.'  But  only  sometimes. 
In  neo-dhuine,  '  a  simpleton,'  neoini,  '  nothing,'  although 
the  stress  shifts  to  the  prefix,  the  syllable  remains  short. 
The  other  difficulty  arises  from  the  diverse  ways  in  which 
we  pronounce  many  dipthongs  in  the  several  localities.  We 
have,  for  many  years  now,  ceased  to  write  e  immediately 
followed  by  a  consonant.  We  insert  one  or  other  of  the 
vowels  after  the  e — fer,  '  man,'  has  become  fear,  and  fer, 
'  grass,'  feur,  thus  creating  a  large  number  of  improper 
diphthongs.  The  combination  eu  is  always  long,  and 
presents  no  accentual  difficulty.  But  the  combination  ea  is 
not  always  short.  Such  words  as  ferr,  '  better ' ;  cerr, 
'  wrong,'  '  left ' ;  cerd,  '  artificer,'  now  *  tinker,'  we  write 
fearr,  cearr,  ceard.  Not  only  so,  but  many  among  us  pro- 
nounce these  and  such  words  with  the  voice  resting  not 
upon  the  e  but  upon  the  a,  as  if  written  fyarr,  cyarr,  cyard, 
and  they  are  not  infrequently  written  with  the  accent  mark 
upon  the  a :  fedrr,  cedrr,  cedrd  for  fearr,  cearr,  ceard.  In 
another  set  of  cases,  the  opposite  process  takes  place. 
Such  improper  diphthongs  as  cedl,  ledn,  seol,  cliil,  iul,  with 
many  others,  are  in  several  districts,  by  a  process  of  singling, 
turned  into  proper  diphthongs,  with  both  vowels  short — 
ce-ol,  le-on,  se-ol,  cli-u,  i-ul.  These,  and  they  could  be 
indefinitely  increased,  are  real  difficulties  which  could  be 
effectually  got  rid  of  in  writing  only  by  doing  away  with  the 
Accent  altogether. 

The  third  way  of  dealing  with  the  Accent  would  be  to 
restrict  the  use  of  it  to  ambiguous  words,  that  is,  the  class 
of  words  whose  sound  and  orthography  differ  only  in  the 
length  of  the  vowel :  has,  '  palm,'  has,  '  death,'  and  the  like. 
This  would  be  but  a  very  partial  solution  of  the  problem. 
It  would  throw  upon  the  reader  the  burden  of  learning, 
without  aid  from  print,  the  quantity  of  all  syllables  except 
the  relatively  small  number  spoken  of  as  ambiguous.  But  it 
is  practical ;  and  it  would  at  any  rate  be  a  great  improve- 


ACCENTS,  APOSTEOPHES,  AND  HYPHENS    197 

merit  upon  the  present  practice,  which  depends  mainly  upon 
the  caprice  of  the  individual  writer.  One  would  think  that 
the  sagacious  Stewari)  favoured  this  view  when  he  wrote  in 
his  Grammar  (p.  3) :  *  A  long  vowel  is  often  marked  with  an 
accent,  especially  when  the  quantity  of  the  vowel  determines 
the  meaning  of  the  words ;  as  "  bas,"  death ;  '  saU,'  the 
heel;  "  caraid,"  a  pair  ;  "  ris,"  again  ;  "  mo,"  more  ;  '  Ion,' 
a  marsh,  which  are  distinguished  by  the  accent  alone  from 
*'  bas,"  the  palm  of  the  hand  ;  "  sail,"  a  beam  ;  '  caraid," 
a  friend  ;  "  ris,"  to  ;    "  mo,"  my ;   "  Ion,"  the  elL' 

II.  The  Apostrophe. — The  Apostrophe  is  used  to  repre- 
sent a  temporarily  dropped  sound.  We  shall  always  have 
a  number  of  these  in  Gaelic  owing  to  our  habit  of  running 
two  or  more  words  into  one  continuous  sound,  thus  neces- 
sarily causing  frequent  contractions  and  elisions.  But  we 
have,  as  it  seems  to  me,  unnecessarily  increased  the  number, 
especially  in  writing  plain  prose.  In  verse  it  becomes  a 
necessity  to  suppress  a  sound  frequently — one  must  preserve 
the  proper  number  of  syllables  in  the  line.  Conversation 
will  also  insist  on  having  its  privileges,  not  merely  in  short- 
hand articulation  but  in  slipshod  diction  as  well.  But  we 
have  allowed  the  colloquial  to  preponderate  in  our  writing ; 
and  as  a  consequence  the  Apostrophe  runs  riot  on  a  Gaelic 
pager  Why  should  we  persist  in  writing  'Se  for  Is  e,  'it 
is '  ?  Everybody  says,  but  why  should  any  one  write,  Co 
Hh'  ann  ?  for  Co  a  tha  ann  ?  '  Who  is  there '  ?  Our 
fathers  and  grandfathers  were  in  these  respects  more 
careful  and  accurate  than  we  have  become. 

For  one  thing,  it  must  be  remembered  that  effect  is  to  be 
given  in  speech  or  writing  to  the  suppressing  of  sound  only 
within  the  limits  of  the  phrase  or  speech-unit.  In  the 
directions  to  the  reader  prefixed  to  early  editions  of  the 
Scriptures,  we  are  told  that  certain  words  like  Tighearna, 
'  Lord,'  and  aite,  '  place,'  may  be  written  with  or  without 
the  final  vowels.  If  the  idea  was  that  the  vowel  might  be 
dropped  when  the  following  word  in  the  phrase  commenced 
with  a  vowel  of  similar  sound  :  ait  aluinn,  e.g.  *  a  beautiful 


198  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

place,'  all  that  can  be  said  is  that  the  learned  editors  failed  to 
carry  it  out.  The  form  Tighearn  frequently  ends  a  period, 
while  the  combination  Tighearna  /osa  Criosd  is  common. 
In  Ephes.  vi.  1  occurs  the  following :  A  chlann,  bithibh 
umhal  do  'ur  parantaibh  fein  san  Tighearn  :  oir  ata  so  ceart. 
Surely  the  final  a  of  Tighearna  was  not  dropped  in  this  case 
because  the  next  word  (across  the  colon)  began  with  the 
vowel  o !  The  Article  is  always  a  member  of  a  speech-unit, 
and  is  responsible  for  many  of  our  Apostrophes.  Its 
permanent  form  in  the  Singular  is  an,  but  oftener  than  not 
it  appears  as  a'  or  'ti.  In  its  case,  I  fear,  we  must  be  content 
to  let  ill  alone.  It  would  savour  of  pedantry  to  write 
do  an  Ugh,  and  in  the  particular  case  the  phrase  would  be 
ambiguous.  So  we  write  dd^n  Ugh,  '  to  the  house,'  and 
W  an  Ugh,  '  to  their  house,'  in  accordance  with  sound  and 
sense.  So  also  we  write  a'  bhean,  '  the  woman,'  although 
h^re  the  Irish,  who  pronounce  as  we  do,  write  an  bhean. 
We  cannot  revert  to  the  full  form  of  the  article  in  this  and 
similar  cases  ;  we  can  only  regret  that  we  ever  discarded  it. 
But,  further,  our  Gaelic  writers  have  extended  the 
function  of  the  Apostrophe  beyond  its  legitimate  sphere — 
they  use  it  not  merely  to  represent  a  suppressed  letter  but 
also  a  suppressed  word.  What  would  one  say  to  an  English 
author  who  would  write,  '  The  man  'I  met  to-day,'  using  the 
Apostrophe  to  represent  the  suppressed  '  whom  '  ?  But  to 
write  ^An  Ugh  m'  athar,  '  in  my  father's  house,'  as  some  do, 
and  as  James  Munro  would  insist  upon  all  doing,  is  equally 
absurd,  and  wrong  in  addition.  The  Gaelic  Preposition 
was  in  early  days  written  in,  as  in  I^atin  and  English. 
Later  we  wrote  it,  in  Scotland,  an,  and  we  fell  into  the  Jiabit 
of  doubling  it,  writing  ann  an.  It  was  under  the  erroheous 
idea  that  the  double  form  was  the  original,  of  which  the 
single  form  was  but  a  contraction,  partly  also,  perhaps,  to 
})revent  the  possibility  of  the  Preposition  being  mistaken 
for  the  Article,  that  Gaelic  authors  called  in  the  Apostrophe 
in  this  case.  But  here  there  could  be  no  ambiguity,  and 
thus  the  form  is  wrong  as  well  as  meaningless. 


ACCENTS,  APOSTEOPHES,  AND  HYPHENS    199 

It  is  only  when  possible  ambiguity  emerges  that  the  use 
jbf  the  Apostrophe  to  represent  a  suppressed  word  is  justifi- 
able. Nearly  all  the  relevant  cases  connect  with  the  very 
small  word  a,  which'  in  Gaelic  develops  from  a  number  of 
sources  and  performs  a  variety  of  functions.  But  ambiguity 
hardly  ever  arises  by  leaving  the  suppression  of  the  word 
unmarked.  Let  us  examine  a  few  of  the  more  doubtful 
cases. 

A  in  Gaelic  attaches  to  a  Noun  when  put  in  the  Vocative 
Case,  and  causes  the  aspiration  of  the  consonant.  Before 
vowels,  it  is  suppressed,  and  the  suppression  is  usually 
marked  by  an  Apostrophe.  But  there  can  be  no  ambiguity, 
and  the  Apostrophe  is  unnecessary :  An  tu  tha  sin,  Iain  ? 
'  Is  that  you,  John  ?  '  The  question  is  as  clear  in  Gaelic  as 
in  English. 

Again  a  stands  for  the  Preposition  an  in  such  phrases  as 
a  mach,  '  out '  ;  a  muigh,  '  outside.'  When  preceded  by  a 
vowel  sound  the  a  is  frequently  dropped  and  replaced  by 
the  Apostrophe :  chaidh  e  ^mach,  *  He  went  out '  ;  tha  e 
^ muigh,  '  He  is  outside.'  Here  again  there  is  no  possible 
mistaking  of  the  meaning.  If  there  were  the  proper  remedy 
would  be  to  write  in  full :  Tha  e  a  muigh.  If  the  a  is  dropped, 
no  representative  is  needed. 

A,  the  so-caUed  Relative.  This  word  which  we  treat  as  a 
Relative,  and  which  we  have  come  to  speak  of  as  a  Relative, 
is  in  origin  not  a  Relative  at  all,  but  the  Tense-particle  do 
which  appears  in  full  in  the  Negative  and  Interrogative 
Moods  of  the  Past  Tense  of  the  Verb,  although  usually  sup- 
pressed in  Scottish  Gaelic  in  the  Affirmative  Mood.  Thus  : 
Cha  do  thog  mi  e,  '  I  did  not  lift  it '  ;  An  do  thog  thu  e  ? 
'  Did  you  lift  it '  ?  but  (Do)  thog  mi  e, '  I  lifted  it.'  The  fact 
is,  we  have  not  had,  since  Gaelic  was  written,  the  Simple 
Relative  in  the  Nominative  Case.  In  the  oblique  cases, 
notably  in  prepositional  phrases,  we  had  it  and  have  it 
still.  In  form,  it  was  and  is  the  same  as  the  Article,  and 
indeed  is  the  Article  used  relatively,  as  we  find  it  in  Homeric 
Greek  :  Am  fear  d'  an  toir  mi  an  leabhar,  ^  The  man  to  whom 


200  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

I  will  give  the  book  ' ;  An  t-aite  gus  an  teid  e, '  The  place  to 
which  he  will  go.'  In  these  and  such  phrases  the  an  is  a 
genuine  Relative,  and  its  form  is  that  of  the  Article,  with  its 
initial  s  clinging  still  to  certain  Prepositions  of  original 
consonantal  auslant  (a,  ann,  gu,  le,  ri),  as  above  in  '  gu5  an 
teid  mi.'  But  the  Relative  in  the  Nominative  has  not  been 
found.  Nor  was  there  a  felt  need  for  it.  In  the  old 
language,  when  the  Verb  retained  its  full  flexion,  there  was 
a  special  form  for  relative  clauses.  Thus  while  is  was,  then 
as  now,  the  form  of  the  third  person  Singular  of  the  Sub- 
stantive Verb,  as  was  the  corresponding  relative  form,  which 
we  ought  to  revive  in  order  to  replace  the  erroneous  a's  of 
to-day ;  heres  was  the  relative  form  alongside  of  berid,  the 
third  singular  of  berimm,  now  beirim,  '  I  bear,'  '  carry,'  and 
so  forth.  The  form  in  s  is  the  only  relative  form  surviving 
now,  and  is  no  doubt  in  origin  the  s  of  {s)e,  '  he  '  in  GaeHc, 
and  of  she  in  English.  So  *  am  fear  a  bhuaileas '  is  properly 
for  '  am  fear  do  bhuaileas,' '  The  man  who  strikes,'  or  '  will 
strike.'  This  a,  as  we  use  it,  stands  for  all  the  purposes  of 
the  Relative  which  we  have  not,  but  which  we  need,  now  that 
the  old  relative  forms  of  the  Verb  have  disappeared.  We 
are  therefore  justified  in  using  it  as  a  Relative  and  even 
speaking  of  it  as  such.  We  often  suppress  it  when  a  vowel 
sound  precedes  it,  or  suppress  the  vowel  sound,  marking  the 
suppression  in  either  case  by  an  Apostrophe.  We  write 
indifferently  Is  mise  ^fhuair  c  and  Is  mis'  a  fhuair  e, '  It  is  I 
who  found  it.'  But  there  is  no  possible  risk  of  mistaking 
the  meaning,  and  we  ought  to  write  simply  Is  mise  fhuair  e, 
A  for  the  Prepositions  do  and  de.  The  substitution  of  a 
for  do  or  de,  due  to  the  desire  for  ease  of  utterance,  is  very 
common,  but  seldom  does  any  confusion  arise  therefrom : 
a  ghnath  for  do  ghnath,  '  always ' ;  a  ris,  a  rithist,  written  in 
the  old  language  doridisi,  '  again '  ;  aon  a  mhuinntir  a' 
bhaile,  '  One  of  the  town's  folk.'  Sometimes  there  may  be 
a  doubt  as  to  the  Preposition  which  a  stands  for.  Thus  an 
unusually  correct  author,  probably  under  the  influence  of 
local  intonation,  writes  air  reir  for  a  reir,  which  is  clearly  for 


ACCENTS,  APOSTEOPHES,  AND  HYPHENS    201 

to  reir,  '  to  the  will  of,'  i.e.  '  according  to  '  :  An  Soisgeul  a 
( =  do)  reir  Mhata, '  The  Gospel  according  to  Matthew.'  When 
the  Preposition  is  followed  by  a  vowel  we  frequently  double 
it,  aspirating  the  sec6nd  form  :  Thoir  do  Iain  e,  '  Give  it  to 
John,'  oftener  than  not  appears  as  Thoir  do  dW  Iain  e  or 
Thoir  a  dh'  Iain  e.  ^o  Aon  a  dhb  uhhlan  Sheumais,  '  One  of 
James's  apples.'  The  Relative  a,  spoken  of  in  the  previous 
paragraph,  doubles  in  the  same  way :  Am  fear  a  dW  olas, 
'  The  man  who  drinks  '  ;  dol  a  dN  61,  '  going  to  drink ' — 
conclusive  proof,  were  there  no  other,  that  the  so-called 
Relative  a  is  a  brokendown  do.  Here  again  no  possible 
ambiguity  arises  from  the  suppression  of  the  a  which  would 
be  removed  by  inserting  an  Apostrophe.  Fear  de  mhuinntir 
I  ;  fear  a  mhuinntir  I ;  duine  mhuinntir  /, '  An  lona  man ' : 
any  of  the  forms  expresses  the  meaning  as  well  as  the  sound 
with  equal  clearness. 

A,  the  Possessive  Pronoun.  The  only  other  function  of 
the  ubiquitous  a  that  need  concern  us  here  is  that  of  the 
Possessive  Pronoun.  The  same  form  is  used  for  Masculine 
and  Feminine,  but  the  fact  that  the  Masculine  causes  aspira- 
tion while  the  Feminine  does  not  is  sufficient  to  distinguish 
them.  Sometimes  uncertainty  was  felt  by  some  of  the  older 
scholars  as  to  whether  in  certain  cases  the  a  represented  the 
Possessive  Pronoun  or  the  Article.  The  late  Dr.  Clerk,  for 
example,  used  to  write  a'  leithid,  'the  like,'  instead  of  a 
leithid,  '  his  '  or  '  her  like,'  maintaining  that  a  stood  for  an. 
Now  it  is  quite  true  that  according  to  the  rule  of  the  nasal, 
n  of  the  Article  usually  disappears  before  I,  r,  s,  and  /,  but 
the  scholarly  clergyman  in  this  case  omitted  to  apply  two 
simple  tests,  either  of  which  was  conclusive  against  him. 
Firstly,  in  a  leithid, '  his  like,'  the  slender  I  is  aspirated,  while 
in  a  leithid,  '  her  like,'  it  is  not.  Secondly,  the  plural  of  the 
Pronoun  is  an,  that  of  the  Article  na.  Now  our  idiom  is 
invariably  an  leithidean, '  their  like,'  never  na  leithidean, '  the 
likes.' 

Such  a  word  as  athair  may  mean  '  a  father,'  '  his  father,' 
or  '  0  father.'     To  write  'athair  excludes  the  first  case  '  a 


202  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

father.'  But  a  possible  confusion  between  '  his  father,'  and 
'  O  father  '  remains.  How  can  we  decide  which  is  meant  in 
a  particular  case  ?  It  will  be  found,  I  think,  that  the  con- 
struction of  the  sentence  removes,  in  all  cases,  any  possi- 
bility of  confusion  between  the  Possessive  Pronoim  and  the 
Vocative  Case,  whether  we  write  the  word  with  or  without 
the  Apostrophe.  The  very  remote  chance  of  an  ambiguity 
which  the  insertion  of  the  Apostrophe  would  remove  lies 
not  between  these  two,  but  between  athair,  '  a  father,'  and 
athair  written  without  the  Apostrophe  when  the  meaning  is 
'  his  father.'  But  such  cases  are  very  rare.  The  use  of 
athair, '  a  father,'  is  not  common.  The  word  is  almost  always 
qualified,  so  that  the  ambiguity  on  this  side  is  nearly  always 
removed  :  athair  Dhaibhidh,  '  David's  father,'  and  so  forth. 
In  the  same  way  the  ambiguity  from  the  side  of  the  Possessive 
Pronoun  is  reduced  to  a  minimum  by  the  construction  of 
the  sentence.  In  such  combinations  as  athair  fein,  '  his  own 
father  '  ;  athair-san,  '  his  father,'  as  distinct  from  yours  or 
mine,  the  Apostrophe  is  quite  unnecessary.  Again,  in  such 
a  sentence  as  fagaidh  duine  athair  agus  a  mhathair,  '  a  man 
will  leave  (his)  father  and  his  mother,'  there  can  be  no 
ambiguity,  and  the  Apostrophe  may  safely  be  suppressed. 
Further  the  Possessive  Pronoun  itself,  seeing  that  it  causes 
aspiration,  may,  as  a  rule,  when  following  a  vowel,  be  silently 
suppressed :  Bha  pharantan  saoibhir,  '  His  parents  were 
wealthy.'  But  in  some  cases  there  might  be  doubt  whether 
it  was  the  Possessive  Pronoun  or  the  Article  that  was 
suppressed.  Bha  bhean  maiseach  is  an  ambiguous  sentence. 
One  must  write,  to  remove  the  ambiguity :  Bha  a  bhean 
maiseach, '  His  wife  vj^as  beautiful,'  or  Bha  a'  bhean  maiseach 
*  The  lady  was  beautiful.' 

In  these,  and  indeed  in  all  cases,  clearness  is  the  first 
consideration,  and  where  the  insertion  of  an  Apostrophe  or 
other  mark  helps  to  remove  possible  uncertainty,  let  it  be 
used  freely.  At  the  same  time  if  we  would  agree  to  write 
as  a  rule  single  words  with  vocalic  auslaut  in  full,  and  sup- 
press silently  where  there  was  no  possibihty  of  ambiguity  or 


ACCENTS,  APOSTROPHES,  AND  HYPHENS    203 

Wcertainty,  we  would  be  able  to  reduce  greatly  our  Apos- 
les,  and  diminish  the  present  irregularity  in  the  use  of 
bhem. 

III.  The  Hyphen, — The  Hyphen,  in  Gaelic  as  in  English, 
is  used  mainly  to  join  the  members  of  a  compound  word, 
and  frequently  to  attach  the  common  Prefixes  to  the  leading 
words.  Thus  :  drd-shagairt,  '  high-priest '  ;  cu-chaorach, 
'  sheep-dog  ' ;  grad-thilg,  '  quickly  throw  '  ;  ana-cainnt, 
'  evil  speech.'  When  the  stress  is  placed  on  the  Prefix  the 
Hjrphen  is  frequently  removed  and  the  spelling  is  adjusted 
according  to  our  Orthographical  Rule.  Thus  :  an-neart, 
'  power  wrongfully  used,'  '  oppression,'  becomes  ainneart ; 
pan-tighearna,  '  woman-lord,'  '  she-lord  '  (distingi^ished  from 
bean  tighearna,  '  a,  lord's  wife  ')  becomes  baintighearna ; 
mi-mhodhail,  *  unmannerly,'  becomes  miomhail,  '  rude,' 
impertinent. 

We  also  in  Gaelic  suffix  the  particles  of  emphasis  to  the 
main  concept  as  a  rule  by  means  of  the  Hyphen.  There 
has  been  no  strict  rule  laid  down  for  our  guidance,  but  the 
practice  generally  followed  is  to  use  the  hyphen  in  appending 
the  particle  to  Nouns,  Adjectives,  and  Verbs  :  Mo  laogh-sa, 
'  my  calf  '  ;  mo  laogh  beag-sa,  '  my  little  calf  '  ;  dh*  fhagainn- 
sa  an  sid  e,  '  I,  for  my  part,  would  leave  him  there.'  In  the 
case  of  the  Prepositional  Pronouns  the  suffix  of  emphasis 
is  attached  to  them  without  the  Hyphen,  except  when  the 
Orthographical  Rule  requires  its  insertion :  dhasan,  '  to 
him,  specially,'  but  dhaibh-san,  '  to  them,  in  particular.' 
E-san,  '  he,  emphatically,'  is  usually  written  esan  in  contra- 
vention of  the  Rule  of  Leathann  ri  leaihann  is  caol  ri  caol, 
'  Broad  (vowel)  to  broad,  and  small  (vowel)  to  small.' 

But  the  Hjrphen  is  used  in  Gaelic  in  a  special  and,  in 
some  respects,  a  peculiar  sense,  to  connect  what  the  Gram- 
marians used  to  call '  euphonic  letters  '  to  an  adjacent  word. 
The  old  scholars  frequently  wrote  a  speech-unit,  as  they 
sounded  it,  continuously  as  one  word :  e,g,  intathir,  now 
an  t-dthair,  '  the  father.'  Their  successors  knew  the  mean- 
ing perfectly,  but  they  could  not  understand  the  significance 


204  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

of  the  t.  It  was  now  in,  now  out.  The  Nominative  was 
antathair,  but  the  Genitive  was  {mac)an  athar,  '  (The  son)  of 
the  father.'  They  did  not  recognise  the  letter  as  an  essential 
part  of  the  Article,  appearing  in  certain  situations.  They 
thought  the  t  was  inserted  '  for  the  sake  of  euphony.' 
So  they  called  it  *  an  euphonic  letter,'  and  noticing  that  in 
this  case  the  sound  attached  to  the  following  rather  than 
to  the  preceding  word,  they  used  the  Hyphen  to  attach  it 
to  the  word  succeeding. 

In  addition  to  Masculine  Nouns  of  initial  vowel  sound 
in  the  Nominative  Singular,  the  t  of  the  Article,  as  our 
Grammars  inform  us,  attaches  to  Nouns  beginning  with  s 
(followed  by  a  vowel  or  liquid),  in  the  case  of  Feminine 
Nouns,  in  the  Nominative  and  Dative  Singular,  and  in  the 
case  of  Masculine  Nouns,  in  the  Genitive  and  Dative. 
Samhradh  is  a  Masculine  Noun,  and  so  we  have  in  the  Dative 
the  phrase  anns  an  t-samhradh,  '  in  summer.'  According  to 
the  rule  of  the  Nasal  n  is  apt  to  disappear,  in  the  Unit, 
before  s  and  t.  Thus  anns  an  teach,  anns  an  Ugh,  '  into,  in, 
the  house,'  have  been  crushed  into  the  phrases  a  steach  and 
a  stigh.  In  the  same  way,  in  certain  localities,  anns  an 
tsamhradh  has  become  as  t-samhradh.  So  far,  no  fault  can 
be  found.  The  phrase  is  in  strict  accordance  with  Gaelic 
phonetics.  Whether  it  should  be  used  in  writing  prose, 
except  when  illustrating  dialect,  in  preference  to  the  full 
form  which  is  still  largely  in  living  use,  is  a  very  different 
matter.  But  localism  has  proceeded  another  step.  By 
Analogy,  or  the  law  of  fashion,  as  t-earrach,  *  in  spring,'  and 
even  as  t-fhoghar,'  '  in  autumn,'  have  been  framed  upon  the 
model  of  as  t-samhradh.  Here  there  is  no  phonetic  justifica- 
tion whatsoever.  It  is  a  pure  case  of  false  Analogy.  Who 
would  ever  say,  much  less  write,  anns  an  t-athair,  anns  an 
t-earrach  ?  And  yet,  some  will  not  only  write  as  t-earrach, 
but  hold  that  the  literary  forms  anns  an  earrach,  san  earrach 
are  wrong  ! 

Another  of  the  so-called  phonetic  letters  with  which  the 
Hyphen  is  connected  is  h,  which  performs  in  Gaelic  such  a 


.ACCENTS,  APOSTEOPHES,  AND  HYPHENS    205 

•iety  of  functions  as  to  give  some  point  and  pungency  to 
'Alpine's  whimsical  observation  regarding  it.  '  This  letter,' 
[h),  says  the  author,  in  his  well-known  Dictionary,  '  is  not 
acknowledged  in  our  Alphabet ;  but  to  keep  the  Gaelic  in 
character  with  us,  the  Highlanders,  who  are  the  bravest 
and  most  singular  people  in  the  whole  world  (as  the  Scots 
Times  says),  it  is  used,  not  only  in  every  word,  but  almost 
in  every  syllable  expressed  or  understood.' 

I  have  already  attempted  to  explain  that  the  h-  in  the 
Genitive  Singular  Feminine  and  in  the  Plural  of  the  Article 
is  an  echo  of  s  which  time  out  of  mind  formed  the  terminal 
sound  of  that  Part  of  Speech  in  these  cases.  In  all  other 
situations  where  h  is  used  in  Gaelic,  apart  from  its  use  in 
marking  aspiration,  it  also  represents  a  lost  sound.  It  is 
not  inserted  '  for  the  sake  of  euphony.'  It  remains  as  the 
last  breath  of  vanishing  sounds.  Like  the  t  of  the  Article 
it  attaches  in  pronunciation  to  the  following  word,  and 
accordingly  our  scholars,  who  could  not  account  for  its 
origin,  attached  it  by  a  Hjrphen  to  the  succeeding  word. 

H  appears  after  the  Prepositions  a,  gu,  le,  ri  when  the 
Noun-object  is  of  initial  vowel  sound.  It  is  the  ghost  of  the 
sound  of  the  consonant  in  which  these  Prepositions  ended 
in  pre-historic  times.  Thus  we  write  a  h-I,  '  out  of  lona  '  ; 
gu  h-Eoghan,  '  to  Hugh '  ;  le  h-eagal,  '  with  fear '  ;  ri 
h-Ahraham, '  to  Abraham.'  It  may  be  added  that  only  the 
faintest  echo  of  this  sound  is  heard  among  the  Gaelic- 
speaking  people  of  the  present  generation,  and  the  latest 
Revisers  of  the  Gaelic  Scriptures  felt  themselves  justified  in 
discarding  the  h  in  such  cases.  But,  as  is  well  known,  the 
most  common  way  of  forming  Adverbs  among  us  is  by 
prefixing  one  of  these  Prepositions  (gu)  to  an  Adjective. 
When  the  initial  sound  of  the  Adjective  is  vocalic  the 
old  h  still  stoutly  asserts  itself,  and  so  we  write  gu  h-ard, 
'  on  high,'  '  above  '  ;  gu  h-iosal,  '  below,'  and  so  forth. 

The  only  other  so-called  euphonic  letter  which  we  need 
to  consider  in  connection  with  the  Hyphen  is  the  nasal  (n). 
The  Rule  of  the  Nasal,  as  formulated  by  the  Grammarians, 


206  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

has  been  already  given  (supra,  p.  6),  and  it  was  added  that 
Scottish  Gaelic  gave  only  partial  adherence  to  it.  Perhaps 
it  was,  in  part  at  least,  owing  to  this  that  our  Highland 
writers  were  less  consistent  in  writing  this  letter  than  Irish 
authors.  An  original  nasal  ending  stands  firm  before 
vowels  in  a  speech-unit,  and  is  pronounced  with  the  following 
word  in  Scottish  and  Irish  Gaelic  alike.  Ar,  '  our,'  (hh)ur, 
'  your,'  have  an  original  nasal  auslaut,  and  in  both  languages 
we  write  ar  n-athair,  '  our  father,'  (bh)ur  n-athair,  '  your 
father,'  in  the  same  way.  The  Negative  cha  (in  Irish  Gaelic 
more  commonly  ni)  and  the  Affirmative  gu  have  also  an 
original  nasal  ending,  and  here  the  Irish  write  consistently 
with  the  Hyphen  cha  n-iarr,  gu  n-iarr,  whereas  we  write  with 
an  Apostrophe  cha'n  iarr,  gu'n  iarr,  '  (I)  shall  not  ask,' 
'  that  (I)  shall  ask.'  Recently  an  attempt  was  made  to  use 
the  Hj^hen  among  us,  but  unfortunately  it  was  placed 
before  the  n  instead  of  after  it,  cha-n  iarr,  gu-n  iarr,  and 
the  practice  fell  into  disuse.  The  Irish  carry  their  transport 
of  the  nasal  much  further  than  we  do ;  they  attach  the  n 
of  the  Genitive  Plural  of  the  Article,  of  the  Possessive 
Pronoun  Plural,  of  the  Preposition  an(n),  and  so  forth,  to  the 
following  word  when  it  begins  with  a  vowel.  To  be  con- 
sistent, if  we  were  printing  Scottish  Gaelic  for  the  first  time, 
we  should  either  follow  the  Irish  way,  or  use  our  own  con- 
sistently, attaching  the  sounds,  when  they  are  heard,  to  the 
previous  word,  and  silently  dropping  them  when  they  are 
not  soimded.  Ant  athair,  am  athair,  chan  iarr,  gun  iarr 
could  easily  be  written  alongside  an  cH,  '  the  dog '  ;  ar 
mdthair,  '  our  mother ' ;  cha  seas,  '  (I)  will  not  stand ; 
gu  bheil,  '  that  (it)  is '  ;  but  guh  ard  and  guh  iosal  would 
look  strange,  at  first  at  any  rate.  The  so-called  euphonic 
letters  must,  however,  like  other  matters,  be  considered 
as  a  whole  before  we  can  disturb  our  present  mode  of  writ- 
ing, inconsistent  in  this  respect  though  it  be. 

Perhaps  one  ought  to  add  that  some  Gaelic  writers 
seem  unable  to  distinguish  between  the  functions  of 
the  Apostrophe  and  Hyphen.     One  sees  occasionally  such 


II 


WELSH  FOLK-SONG  COLLECTIONS  207 


orms  as  dh-ol  for  dJCdl,  and  even  t-athair  for  fatJiair.  It 
need  hardly  be  said  that  the  Hyphen  in  these  and  such 
cases  is  quite  out  of  place.  The  Apostrophe  is  the  proper 
mark  to  represent  the  temporarily  suppressed  o  of  do,  the 
d  itself  aspirating  in  the  one  case,  and  becoming  t  in  the 
other. 


WELSH  FOLK-SONG  COLLECTIONS 

Notes  for  the  Bibliographical  side  of  a  Lecture  delivered 
in  Cardiff  in  January  1909  by  Mr.  Alfred  Perceval 
Graves,  and  chiefly  furnished  by  Dr.  J.  Lloyd  Williams, 
Director  of  Music  at  Bangor  University  College,  North 
Wales,  and  Editor  of  the  Welsh  Folk- Song  Society's 
Publications. 

1.  The  first  collection  of  decipherable  airs  bears  date  1742. 
Before  that  a  few  had  been  contributed  to  a  book  of  English, 
Scots,  and  Irish  airs,  by  a  South  Wales  musician  of  the 
name  of  Edwards.  There  was  also  an  MS.  of  Crwth  music 
which  has  been  published  but  not  satisfactorily  deciphered. 

First  Period.     1742-1844 

The  1742  work  consisted  of  twenty-four  airs  without 
name,  among  them  Rhuddlan  Marsh,  compiled  and  arranged 
by  John  Parry,  the  blind  harpist,  of  Ruabon,  and  Ivan 
Williams,  a  London  teacher  of  music.  Other  volumes 
appeared  in  1761  (or  62  ?)  and  1781,  the  latter  being  far 
and  away  the  best  of  the  three. 

2.  Ed.  Jones,  Bardd  y  Brenin  (the  King's  Bard),  pub- 
lished the  Relick  in  1784.  This  and  the  Bardic  Museum 
contained  a  large  number  of  melodies  not  previously  pub- 
lished, together  with  a  number  which  had  already  appeared 
in  John  Parry's  Collection.  Nearly  all  the  above  had  no 
words  printed  with  them. 

3.  From  1809  onward.  John  Parry  (Bard  Alaw), 
another  London  musician,  and  for  a  considerable  time  musi- 
cal director  of  the  Vauxhall  Gardens,  published  volumes  of 


208  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Welsh  melodies  with  English  words  by  Mrs.  Hemans  and 
other  well-known  English  writers.  Some  of  the  melodies 
were  also  utilised  in  his  ballad  operas,  particularly  in  his 
Welsh  Girls  and  the  Trips  to  Wales,  but  he  made  no  additions 
to  our  store  of  melodies  (until  1848  in  the  second  period),  and 
his  selection  of  airs  was  limited.  Certain  airs  were  utilised 
over  and  over  again. 

In  1809  Crotch  published  about  forty  examples  of  Welsh 
airs  without  words,  most  of  them  from  Parry  and  E.  Jones. 

In  connection  with  this  Collection  I  have  an  interesting 
bit  of  fresh  Welsh  Folk-Song  gossip  from  Dr.  Lloyd  Williams. 
Crotch  was  lecturer  on  music  at  Oxford,  and  Malchair,  a 
Spanish  violinist,  used  to  collect  for  him  melodies  that  he 
heard  played  or  sung.  In  Crotch's  examples  of  Welsh 
Melodies  published  in  1809  is  a  little  minor  air  without  title, 
but  with  a  note  in  the  Introduction,  '  Heard  by  Dr.  Malchair 
in  Harleck  Castle.'  Some  little  time  ago  Llew  Tegid, 
rummaging  among  the  volumes  on  the  bookstall  of  a  dealer 
in  the  Bangor  Town  Hall,  came  across  a  neatly  written  MS. 
music-book,  which  proved  to  be  Malchair' s,  and  to  contain 
the  very  melody  picked  up  in  Harlech  Castle.  The  book 
had  thus  strangely  found  its  way  back  into  the  region  in 
which  the  North  Welsh  air  had  been  noted  down  in  it. 

In  the  same  year,  1809,  appeared  the  first  of  the  three 
volumes,  published  by  Thompson,  and  containing  ninety 
airs,  with  English  lyrics  written  especially  for  them,  and 
arrangements  by  Haydn  and  Beethoven.  This  enterprise 
was  more  ambitious  than  successful.  Many  of  the  tunes 
were  mutilated  by  Thompson,  and  others  misunderstood. 
A  few  only  were  effectively  done. 

In  1829  appeared  a  collection  of  harp  tunes  by  Richard 
Roberts,  the  blind  harpist  of  Carnarvon.  This  contained  a 
considerable  number  of  unpublished  airs,  but  was  not  weU 
done,  the  spelling  of  the  Welsh  names  and  the  translation 
into  English  being  execrable. 

There  were  other  minor  collections  as  that  of  Bingley  in 
1800. 


WELSH  FOLK-SONG  COLLECTIONS         209 

Here  are  some  generalisations  re  the  first  period  of  Welsh 
'olk-Song  Collecting : — 

L  All  the  collections  are  by  North walians,  all  of  whom 
except  R.  Roberts  resided  the  greater  part  of  their  time  in 
London,  and  most  of  whom  were  harpists:  or  by  non- 
Welshmen.  There  was  no  collection  of  songs  made  by  a 
Southwalian. 

2.  Most  of  the  melodies  were  harp  tunes,  and  were 
either  purely  instrumental  (some  having  elaborate  varia- 
tions) or  were  used  to  sing  penillion  to  in  the  peculiar 
North  Wales  style. 

3.  There  were  very  few  '  songs '  in  the  proper  sense  of 
the  term,  and  still  fewer  folk-songs.  This,  in  spite  of  the  well- 
attested  fact  that  South  Wales  was  rich — far  richer  than 
North  Wales — in  songs,  and,  be  it  noted,  in  modal  tunes — 
Dorian,  iEolian,  and  Mixo-Lydian. 

4.  Many  of  the  tunes  printed  were  of  English  origin. 
Far  better  ones  than  most  belonging  to  this  category  were 
omitted,  though  they  must  have  been  widely  known 
(perhaps  too  widely  known)  and  had  even  been  borrowed 
by  the  English  themselves.  Witness  the  case  of  the 
'Bells  of  Aberdyfi,'  first  published  in  Wales  by  Jane 
Williams  in  1844,  but  which  had  already  been  sung 
in  ballad  opera  (to  a  parody  of  Welsh  words)  in  1785. 

5.  One  of  the  most  striking  facts  is  the  almost  total 
absence  of  Welsh  words  in  the  above  collections. 

During  the  period  under  consideration  harpists  were 
found  in  every  neighbourhood,  and  the  ability  to  sing  penil- 
lion was  general.  Even  in  London  there  were  many  Welsh 
harpists.  According  to  an  advertisement  found  at  the  end 
of  William  Leatheart's  book  on  penillion  (1825),  the  singing 
of  penillion  went  on  at  certain  houses  (mostly  public-houses) 
every  evening  of  the  week.  There  is,  however,  a  bitter 
complaint  that  The  Revival  was  gradually  causing  this  kind 
of  singing  to  fall  into  disrepute. 

The  singing  of  ballads  obtained  everywhere,  but  the 
tunes  were  generally  a  class  apart,  peculiar  in  style,  many 

VOL.  VI.  o 


210  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

of  them  not  particularly  beautiful  in  form  or  melody. 
Many  of  them  also  were  of  English  origin,  others  bore  names 
suggestive  of  such  origin,  but  this  was  undoubtedly  due  to 
their  having  been  first  sung  to  ballads  which  were  either 
translations  or  imitations  of  English  ones.  Thus  we  have  a 
number  of  Welsh  '  crimson  velvet '  tunes,  but  they  are  all 
different  in  melody  and  in  metre  to  the  English  one  recorded 
by  Chappell. 

We  know  from  the  few  folk-songs  collected  by  Jane 
WiUiams  and  others  in  subsequent  years,  that  there  must 
have  been  a  large  number  of  folk-songs  in  the  country. 
Why  were  neither  the  melodies  nor  the  words  recorded  ? 
Mr.  J.  H.  Davies  has  shown  that  the  simple  Ijrrics  were 
despised  by  the  regular  bards  because  of  the  absence  of  all 
trace  of  cynghaned.  An  analogous  reason  accounts  for  the 
neglect  of  the  tune  by  the  musician. 

Thus  there  were  three  distinct  classes  of  song  : — 

(a)  The  lowest  stratum,  into  which  the  more  learned 
never  penetrated — the  folk-song  proper.  Of  these  there  is  a 
pitifully  smaU  number  recorded. 

(b)  The  ballad  tune,  and  (c)  the  harp  tune. 

These  overlapped  somewhat,  but  the  last  on  the  whole 
was  the  top  stratum,  though  the  singing  of  traditional 
penillion  prevailed  among  all  classes,  high  and  low. 

II. — The  Period  from  1844  to  1848 
{Four  years  only) 

1844  and  1845.  Two  collections  of  unpublished  songs 
which  had  been  sent  to  the  Abergavenny  Eisteddfod  were 
published. 

Maria  Jane  Williams  (1844),  made  by  far  the  most  impor- 
tant. She  obtained  the  songs  from  the  people :  she  has  re- 
corded them  exactly  as  she  got  them.  She  did  not  reject 
those  exhibiting  ancient  modes,  and  she  did  not  displace 
the  original  words.  Some  of  these  are  among  the  most  ex- 
pressive that  we  have — '  Y  Der3ni  Pur  '  (The  Dove),  '  The 


WELSH  FOLK-SONG  COLLECTIONS         211 

Tackbird,'  '  The  Miller's  Daughter,'  '  Watching  the  Wheat,' 
*  Bells  of  Aberdovey,'  etc. 

John  Thomas  (1^45)  has  some  interesting  tunes,  but  he 
has  replaced  the  original  lyrics  with  words  of  his  own — and 
these  are  very  unequal  in  merit. 

In  1848  appeared  the  Welsh  Harper,  vol.  ii.  (The  first 
had  appeared  in  1839,  and  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
melodies  at  the  end  was  a  reprint  of  Ed.  Jones  from  the 
original  plates.)  The  second  volume  had  a  large  number 
of  new  airs.  These  were  not  collected  by  J.  Parry,  but 
supplied  to  him  by.  three  collectors,  of  whom  the  most 
important  were  the  Rev.  J.  Jenkins  of  Kerry  and  Aneurin 
Owen  Pughe.  Unfortunately  the  words  and  information 
as  to  the  origin  which  accompanied  most  of  these  (particu- 
larly those  of  Jenkins)  were  omitted  and  some  were  tampered 
with.  The  accompaniments  were  simple  and  tasteful,  but 
we  could  easily  have  done  without  these  if  the  other  informa- 
tion had  been  supplied. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  only  collector  who  approached 
the  Welsh  folk-song  in  the  proper  spirit  was  Miss  J.  Williams. 

Although  subsequent  to  1844  we  have  had  a  few  sporadic 
examples  recorded,  we  have  had  no  collection  formed  on 
the  same  lines  as  hers.  This  is  Dr.  Lloyd  Williams's  criticism, 
but  Sir  Harry  Reichel  takes  a  different  view.  *  Miss  Jane 
Williams,'  he  writes,  *  gained  the  prize  offered  for  such  a 
collection  in  the  Abergavenny  Eisteddfod  volume  of  1838, 
and  that  of  Bennett  and  Evans  (1896)  is  largely  based  upon 
the  MS.  collection  of  Llewelyn  Alun,  which  gained  a  similar 
prize  in  the  Llangollen  Eisteddfod  of  1858.  To  the  student 
of  folk-song  the  last  of  these  is  by  far  the  most  valuable. 
The  Editors  have  evidently  set  before  themselves  the 
collection  of  genuine  original  material  without  too  much 
regard  to  its  apparent  artistic  value.  Thus  we  get  not  only 
many  beautiful  and  hitherto  unpublished  airs,  such  as 
"  Morfa's  Frenhines,"  Ffarwel  Ned  Pugh,  but  a  number  of 
what  we  may  call  tunes  in  the  making,  airs  which  have  not 
yet  been  elaborated  into  perfect  form,  but  still  show  the 


212  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

rough  tool-work  of  the  artist  as  he  groped  his  way  towards 
the  expression  of  the  idea  in  his  mind.' 


III. — The  Third  Period 

The  collections  published  during  this  period  are  too  well 
known  to  need  description.  Those  of  Brinley  Richards, 
John  Thomas  (Pencerdd  Gwalia),  Davidson,  Owain  Alaw 
(The  Gems  of  Welsh  Melody),  Dr.  Joseph  Parry,  etc.  Most 
of  the  melodies  were  already  known. 

The  collection  of  Richards  (South  of  Wales)  and  the 
Gems  were  notable  for  their  containing  a  large  number  of 
new  Welsh  lyrics,  those  of  Ceiriog  and  of  Talhaiarn. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  collections  of  the  first  and  second 
period  were  made  in  the  main  with  the  object  of  preserving 
the  Welsh  National  Melodies.  Those  of  the  third  aimed 
rather  at  the  supply  of  good  songs  available  for  the  musical 
public. 

Now  we  hope  to  have  side  by  side  with  these  the  new 
airs  now  being  collected  from  the  lips  of  the  Welsh 
peasantry,  and  the  most  carefully  chosen  of  these  arranged 
as  part-songs  and  solos  by  such  musical  experts  as  Dr. 
Somervell  and  Dr.  Lloyd  Williams,  set  to  such  traditional 
words  as  are  worthy  of  preservation  and,  where  these  are 
wanting,  lyrics  of  the  quality  of  which  our  young  Welsh 
bards  are  capable. 

Sir  Harry  Reichel  justly  points  out  how  many  songs 
without  words  there  are  in  Wales. 

To  quote  leuan  Dhu :  '  As  to  songs  that  breathed 
anything  like  the  spirit  of  the  airs,  both  North  and  South 
Wales  are  sadly  destitute.' 

He  has  himself  done  much,  as  has  Talhaiarn ;  and  Ceiriog 
has  done  a  great  deal  to  wipe  out  this  reproach.  But  it  still 
obtains  and  it  is  therefore  an  encouragement  to  see  older 
bards  like  Elvet  and  Morris  Jones  and  Llew  Tegid,  and  the 
younger  ones  like  Eifion  Win  bestirring  themselves  to  make 
'  Songs     for    Cymru,'    remembering    old    Drummond    of 


WELSH  FOLK-SONG  COLLECTIONS  213 

rawthornden's  famous  dictum  :  '  Let  me  make  the  songs 
for  a  people,  and  I  care  not  who  makes  their  laws.'  Then 
let  all  young  Welslj  bards  remember  what  an  Irishman  of 
Welsh  descent  once  wrote  in  his  passionate  appeal  to  his 
feUow-countrymen  to  fill  the  wide  gaps  that  still  exist  in  our 
national  minstrelsy — words  fit  to  fire  the  blood  of  every  true 
son  of  the  Celt : — 

'  If  they  be  poets,  they  can  do  so.  If  they  be  men  of 
bounding  animal  spirits,  who  love  the  rise  because  of  its  toil 
and  the  descent  because  of  its  speed,  who  have  grown  up 
amid  the  common  talk  and  pictures  of  nature,  the  bosomed 
lake  amid  rocks  like  a  woman  in  a  warrior's  arms,  the  end- 
less sea  with  its  roaring  or  whispering  fringes,  the  mantled 
or  glittering  or  thundering  night,  the  bleak  moor,  the  many- 
voiced  trees,  the  bounding  river  :  if  they  be  men  who  have 
passionately  loved,  and,  ere  philosophy  raised  them  above 
it,  ardently  hated  :  if  they  be  men  generous  in  friendship, 
hearty  at  the  hearth,  tranced  by  sweet  or  maddened  by 
strong  sounds,  sobbing  with  unused  strength  and  fiery  for 
freedom  and  glory,  then  they  can  write  lyrics  for  every  class 
in  Ireland.' 

That  was  Thomas  Davis's  appeal  to  Irishmen,  and  it 
has  been  and  is  still  being  responded  to.  It  will  be  well  if 
Welshmen  and,  for  the  matter  of  that,  all  the  young  lyrists 
of  the  Four  Nations  within  the  British  seas  will  further 
bethink  themselves  of  Sir  Harry  Reichel's  fine  appeal : — 

'  Our  Empke  is  tending  more  and  more  to  become  a 
Confederation  of  Sister  Nations,  kept  together  partly  by 
external  pressure,  partly,  and  we  trust  increasingly,  by 
internal  attraction.  Such  cohesion  can  only  exist,  provided 
the  different  parts  understand  and  appreciate  each  other. 
Through  what  medium  can  they  better  get  to  know  each 
other's  true  spirit  and  ideals  than  through  their  folk-songs, 
which  embody,  perhaps  in  a  greater  degree  than  any  other 
artistic  product,  the  finer  national  instincts  of  the  particular 
race  from  which  they  spring  ?  ' 


214  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

THE  BATTLE  OF  RAITH  AND  ITS  SONG-CYCLE: 
ATTRIBUTED  TO   HANEIRIN^ 

E.  W.  B.  Nicholson 

§  1.     The  Commander-in-Chief 

Close  neighbours  in  Ulster  were  the  Picts  of  Dal  Araide 
and  the  Scots  of  Dal  Riada.  Among  the  latter  ruled,  in 
the  early  5th  century,  a  chief  whose  name  in  the  nominative 
case  was  EoShu  :.  but  it  is  important  to  know  that  the  stem 
form  of  it  was  Echach,  the  genitive  Echach,  and  that  his 
son  Ere  is  called  MacEchach.  This  Eochu  is  styled  by 
chroniclers  Muindremhar,  Muinremuir,  or  Muinremor — 
which  appears  on  the  face  of  it  to  mean  Thicknecked,  from 
muin,  *  neck,'  and  remor,  '  thick.'  I  am  confident,  how- 
ever, for  a  reason  which  the  reader  will  appreciate  by  and 
by,  that  the  real  epithet  was  Muintermhor,  '  Of  the  large 
retinue,'  like  the  Welsh  royal  epithet  '  Cascord  maur ' 
(  =  Gosgordd  f awr)  in  Table  XII.  of  the  '  Harleian  Genea- 
logies.' The  syllables  er  and  re  are  expressed  by  the  same 
supralinear  abbreviation,  and  an  early  c  with  a  long  top 
and  a  tail  carried  up  is  <]juite  liable  to  be  misread  as  an 
Irish  6.^  ^ 

Now  Ere  mac  Echach  Muintermhoir  ^  had  a  number 
of  children,  one  of  whom,  Fergus  Mor,  led  a  settlement  into 
the  west  of  Alban,  the  country  he  occupied  being  called, 
after  his  homeland,  Dal  Riada.  There  is  no  hint  that  he 
conquered  it :  indeed  the  idea  is  absurd.  He  may  have 
inherited  it  through  his  wife,  or  by  right  of  his  mother — 
for  it  is  noticeable  that  he  is  frequently  called  Mac  Misi 
Mor,*  after  his  mother  Mise.  He  may  even  have  been 
invited  over  by  the  Picts  as  a  check  on  the  Welsh  of  Alclyde  : 

*  The  references  in  this  paper  to  '  Stephens '  are  taken  from  his  text,  translation, 
and  commentary,  edited  by  Powel,  and  issued  in  1888  by  the  Cymmrodorion  Society. 

2  The  converse  mistake  of  reading  a  6  as  a  c  is  made  in  the  Orammatica  Cdticaf 
p.  1062, 1.  1,  where  the  MS.  has  not  strutugua/r  but  strvdugua/r. 

^  *  Muintermhoir '  in  this  case,  because  it  has  to  be  put  in  the  genitive. 

*  Chrmides  of  the  Picts  and  Scots,  pp.  309,  311,  317. 


BATTLE  OF  EAITH  AND  ITS  SONG-CYCLE    215 

certainly  his  successors  held  rule  under  a  feudal  obligation 
to  the  Pictish  kingdom.^ 

This  occupation  took  place,  according  to  Tigernach, 
in  501,  and  in  574  his  great-grandson  Aidan,  the  son  of 
Gabran,  became  ruler  of  Scottish  Dal  Riada,  and  by  the 
help  of  Columba  was  able  to  make  himself  independent  of 
Irish  Dal  Riada  except  that  he  was  to  be  bound  to  aid  it 
in  war. 

Aidan  clearly  ruled  over  the  district  of  Gowrie  before 
he  became  king  of  the  Dal  Riada  Scots.  Skene  points  out 
that  the  length  of  his  reign,  as  recorded  by  Tigernach, 
exceeds  by  5  years  his  reign  over  the  Scots  (Celtic  Scot- 
land, vol.  i.  p.  160).  Moreover,  in  the  Prophecy  of  St.  Berchan 
{Chronicles  of  the  Picts  and  Scots,  p.  82)  it  is  said  of  him  : — 

Nor  was  it  happy  with  him  that  an  Erinach 
Should  be  king  in  the  east  under  the  Cruithnigh. 

His  Scottish  kingdom  was  not  in  the  east  but  in  the 
west.  And  the  following  facts  enable  us  definitely  to  say 
that  he  ruled  over  Gowrie,  though  he  may  have  added 
other  territory  to  it  by  marriage. 

Aidan  was  the  son  of  Gabran,  who  married  a  daughter 
of  Brachan  of  Brecheiniauc,  chief  of  the  Brechin  district, 
which  gets  its  name  from  him.^    It  is  clear  that  Gabran 

*  See  my  Keltic  Researches, 'p.  81. 

^  S*5§  his  legend  in  Rees's  Cambro- British  Saints,  pp.  272-5.  It  is  semi-fabulous, 
but  a  good  deal  seems  clear  from  it.  Brachan  was  the  son  of  an  Irish  king  by  the 
daughter  of  a  South- Welsh  king  named  Theuderic  (Theodoricus,  a  name  copied  from 
that  of  the  Visigothic  king  who  became  an  ally  of  Aetius).  From  his  grandfather  he 
inherited  Brecknock  in  South  Wales,  which  is  named  after  him.  His  North  British 
territory  he  doubtless  inherited  through  some  Pictish  ancestress,  perhaps  his  mother's 
mother  or  his  grandfather's  :  for  the  Pictish  law  of  succession  was  through  females, 
and  his  mother  was  married  to  the  Irish  king  under  condition  that  when  a  son  was 
born  he  and  she  were  to  return  to  Britain  that  the  boy  might  not  be  deprived  of 
patrio  regno  Britannim.  He  was  sent  to  be  educated  by  one  Drichan,  and  an 
anecdote  shows  that  this  was  juxta  ripam  fluminis  Ischir,  which  is  obriously  Isc 
Hir,  the  long  Esk,  i.e.  the  South  Esk,  close  to  which  Brechin  stands.  His  legend 
shows  him  to  have  been  of  very  bad  morals,  and  he  left  an  unusually  large  number 
of  children,  some  of  whom  are  associated  with  Wales,  but  others  with  '  Manan '  or 
Mannia '  =  Manaw  in  the  Tay  region.  He  was  buried  in  an  isle  called  Enysbrachan 
Brachan's  isle),  juxta  Manniam  (the  Inch  at  Brechin  ?). 

Brechin  is  a  locative,  and  59  is  Gouerin  (with  i=ai):  it  is  this  i  which  infects  the 
first  vowel  of  Brachan  from  a  into  e. 


216  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

received  Gowrie  as  her  portion,  and  that  it  took  from  him 
its  name.  For  Gabran  is  syncopated  from  Gaboran,  a 
derivative  of  O.  Ir.  gabor,  '  goat,'  and  this  is  gohhar  in 
Highland  Gaelic  and  gafr  in  Welsh :  consequently  Aidan's 
father  appears  not  only  as  Gabran  and  Gabhran,  but  also 
as  Goueran,  Gouran,  and  Gafran.  The  earliest  recorded 
form  of  Gowrie  is  Gouerin  (before  1200),  but  still  earher 
forms  are  found  in  the  Four  Ancient  Books  of  Wales :  for 
there  is  a  '  cat  gouaran,'  '  battle  of  Gowrie  '  (which  neither 
Stephens  nor  Silvan  Evans  has  seen  the  meaning  of),  in 
No.  29  of  the  Raith  song-cycle ;  and  the  Book  of  Taliessin 
contains  in  Poem  xi.  the  line  : — 

Yg  gafran  yn  aduan  brecheina6c, 

translated  by  Professor  Anwyl,^  '  In  Gafran  in  the  quarter 
of  the  land  of  Brychan '  ( Wales  and  the  Britons  of  the  North, 
reprinted  from  the  Celtic  Review,  p.  42).  Gafran  and 
Gouaran,  then,  were  Gowrie,  which  was  the  patrimony  of 
Aidan. 

In  583  Aidan  won  a  battle  in  Manann,  doubtless  against 
the  Angles.  In  590  he  fought  the  battle  of  Leithrig,  and 
in  596  was  defeated  (and  lost  two  sons)  in  the  battle  of 
Circind.  He  was  heavily  beaten  by  the  Northumbrians 
at  Degsastan  (apparently  Dawstane  in  Liddesdale)  in  603, 
and  died  in  Kintjrre  in  606,  having  apparently  abdicated. 
He  had  been  for  some  quarter  of  a  century  the  one  really 
striking  figure  in  British  history. 

§  2.     The  Battle 

In  596  he  was  encamped  and  fortified  against  the  men 
of  Deira  and  Bernicia  near  Raith,  which  is  about  2^ 
miles  W.  from  Kirkcaldy  in  Fife.  He  had  a  'mAunted 
escort  of  300,^  led  by  3  chiefs — the  flower,  it  would  seem, 
of  British  chivalry.  Apparently  they  held  the  country 
at  the  back  of  Raith,  while  the  Angles  probably  occupied 

^  He  does  not  identify  Gafran,  but  says  that  Brecheina6c  is  '  probably  a  Brycheiniog 
of  the  North.' 

^  Also  given  as  360  :  the  variation  will  be  discussed  later. 


BATTLE  OF  EAITH  AND  ITS  SONG-CYCLE    217 

the  land  between  Raith  and  the  sea,  with  their  ships 
to  retreat  to  in  case  of  defeat.  After  the  armies  had 
been  in  touch  with  each  other  (either  there  or  in  the  ad- 
joining country)  for  something  Hke  a  week,  the  British 
escort  indulged  in  a  drinking-feast — the  cause  (to  some 
extent,  at  least)  of  the  morrow's  disaster.  At  dawn  (seem- 
ingly without  any  support  from  the  main  force)  they  rode 
downhill  upon  enormously  superior  forces,  and  by  day- 
break their  destruction  was  so  complete  that  not  more 
than  3  escaped. 

According  to  the  song-cycle,  they  were  accompanied  by 
a  bard,  who  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Angles,  from  whom 
he  was  ransomed.  His  name  is  given  as  Aneurin,  which, 
as  I  learn  from  Professor  Anwyl,  represents  either  Honor- 
inus  or  a  vernacular  adaptation  of  that  name,  and  I  find 
that  he  was  known  at  a  very  early  date  as  Haneirin  ;  ^  but 
the  H  was  eventually  dropped,  and  the  name  turned  into 
Aneurin.  Under  that  we  have  a  great  number  of  poems 
relating  to  the  battle  and  to  those  who  took  part  in  it: 
they  are  known  as  the  Gododin — a  name  to  be  discussed 
later.  In  the  late  form  of  the  text  which  has  descended 
to  us,  the  scene  is  always  called  catraeth,  i.e.  Cat  Raeth, 
but  the  Middle  Welsh  ae  stands  for  Old  Welsh  ai,  and  so 
we  get  back  to  an  original  Cat  Raith,  '  battle  of  Raith.' 

Irish  chroniclers  (Tigernach  and  the  Annals  of  Ulster) 
also  speak  of  it  as  the  '  battle  of  Raith ' — cath  Ratha,  cath 
being  the  Irish  equivalent  of  Welsh  cat,  and  Ratha  being 
the  genitive  of  Raith,  They  call  it  (copying,  of  course, 
some  earlier  chronicle  )'  cath  Ratha  in  druadh.'  Raith 
means  '  earthwork,'  and  in  Ireland  at  any  rate  there  were 
a  great  many>  places  so  named — while  there  was  at  least 
one  other  in  Scotland.     Consequently,  it  was  common  to 

/  1  In  the  Historia  Brittoimm,  §  62,  a  list  of  bards  of  the  time  of  Ida  and  Mailcun 
is  given,  containing  the  words  'et  Neirin.'  Zinmier  {Nenniits  Vindicatus,  p.  102) 
anticipated  me  long  ago  in  seeing  that  '  et '  is  a  misreading  of  the  first  syllable  of  the 
name  ;  but  he  should  have  emended  not  Aneirin  but  Haneirin — the  8th  century 
form  of  theconjunction  being  not  ac,  a,  but  hac,  ha  (see  the  Gram.  Celt,  pp.  118,  720). 
That  Lat.  h-  was  at  any  time  pronounced  in  Welsh  there  seems,  however,  no  evidence. 


\ 


218  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

distinguish  them  by  suffixes — e.g.  Rdith  na-n  epscop, 
'  Bishops'  Raith  '  (Martyrology  of  Donegal) — and  the  words 
may  mean  *  battle  of  Druid's  Raith '  ;  but  I  very  strongly 
suspect  that  druadh  represents  '  bard,'  and  that  the  expres- 
sion means  '  the  poet's  battle  tJf  Raith,'  because  a  poet  had 
sung  of  it  under  that  name. 

No  one  seems  ever  to  have  hit  on  this  perfectly  simple 
explan^^on  of  '  Catraeth.'  Nearest  to  domg  so  came  the 
people  who  sa^d  it  =  Cat  Traeth,  '  battle  of  the  Strand.' 
Skene  (wonderful  to  relate)  not  only  identified  the  com- 
mander-in-chief (though  quite  misunderstanding  his  name) 
with  Aidan,  and  specified  596  as  the  year  in  which  it  was 
fought,  but  actually  quoted  the  very  next  line  of  Tigernach 
to  that  which  contains  the  mention  of  Cath  Ratha  without 
seeing  that  the  two  names  were  the  same  !  Nay,  in  his 
Chronicles  of  the  Picts  and  Scots  he  had  even  given  us  under 
596  the  very  words  of  Tigernach  '  Cath  Ratha  in  druadh  '  ! 

§  3.  Minidauc  mwynvawr 
The  commander  of  the  native  forces  is  repeatedly  called 
Minidauc  (the  oldest  spelling,  once  only),  Mynydauc,  or 
Mynydawc.  No  one  has  seen  who  he  was.  His  name  is 
supposed  to  mean  '  Mountaineer,'  and  so  of  course  it  does 
as  written  :  strange  that  the  Irish  chronicles  and  the  Welsh 
genealogies  should  be  alike  ignorant  of  it !  The  truth  is 
that  it  should  be  divided  into  Min  Idauc  ^  =  Min  Aidauc, 
'  my  Aidauc,'  ^.e.  Aidan  the  son  of  Gabran.  Aidauc 
would  be  the  Welsh  honorific  or  pet  form  of  Aidan :  one 
of  the  saints  named  Aidan  is  sometimes  called  Maedoc,  ix, 
M'Aedoc,  and  sometimes  Aeddan  Foeddog,  where  Foeddog 
is  a  later  and  mutated  form  of  M'Aedoc.     Min  is  an  obsolete 

^  Idauc  became  Iddawc  in  later  Welsh.  Professor  Anwyl  ( Wales  and  the  Britons 
of  the  North,  p.  25)  quotes  from  the  Mabinogi  known  as  the  Dream  of  Rhonabwy 
Iddawc  Cordd  Prydein  (Iddawc  the  disturber  of  Pictland),  a  title  most  appropriate* 
to  Aidan,  who  had  a  13  years'  struggle  with  the  Picts  (see  my  Keltic  Researches, 
p.  81).  In  the  'Dream'  he  is  put  too  early,  being  made  a  contemporary  of  Arthur, 
and  his  nickname  Cordd  Prydein  is  wrongly  explained  :  he  is  also  erroneously  called 
son  of  Mynyo,  which  suggests  his  having  been  called  Iddawc  Mynaw  or  Miniu,  i.e. 
Aidauc  of  Manaw. 


BATTLE  OF  RAITH  AND  ITS  SONG-CYCLE    219 

possessive  adjective  ^=  '  mine ' :  that  it  once  existed  in  Welsh 
is  shown  by  the  later  mutated  form  vyn.  In  Irish  the  use 
of  the  possessive  adjective  of  the  first  person  as  a  prefix 
of  respect  or  endearment  (e,g,  Mochua  =  My  Cua)  is  over- 
whelmingly kbundaiit  :  in  Welsh  I  only  remember  Munghu. 
This  last  is  a  by-name  for  St.  Kentigern,  and  is  erroneously 
explained  as  '  dear  (mwyn)  Cu ' :  it  really  is  an  instance  of 
the  same  obsolete  possessive  pronoun  min  or  mun,  and 
means  '  my  Cu.'  ^ 

In  two  other  songs  of  the  cycle  Min  Aidauc  was  desig- 
nated by  the  later  form  of  the  possessive  adjective  as 
M' Aidauc  :  but  the  ignorance  or  carelessness  of  the  trans- 
mitters of  the  text  turned  this  into  Madauc,  a  Middle 
Welsh  form  of  the  Welsh  name  Matauc.  The  context  of 
the  instances  in  question  leaves  no  possible  room  for  doubt 
as  to  the  identity  of  the  chief  named,  and  the  corruption 
to  Madoc  is  weU  known  in  the  case  of  his  namesake  St. 
Aidan. 

It  is  the  same  Aidan  who  is  referred  to  as  Echeching, 
a  name  hitherto  unexplained.  It  is  one  of  the  very  rare 
Welsh  patronymics  in  -ing,^  of  which  another  specimen, 
Owrveling,  is  found  in  these  poems.  Gwrveling  is  not  a 
separate  person,  but  an  epithet  of  Medel,  and  means 
'descendant  of  Gwrvel.'  And  Echeching  is  the  regular 
i^mZa^^i-development  of  an  earlier  Echaching  (Echachinc  ?), 
descendant  of  Eochu. 

Now  this  Eochu,  we  saw,  is  said  to  have  been  called 
'  Muindremhar,'  and  Aidan  himself  is  called  in  these 
poems  '  mwynvawr  '  in  the  line : — 

Rac  gosgord  Mynydawc  mwynvawr 

Before  the  retinue  of  My  Aidauc  *  mwynvawr ' 

Here  '  mwynvawr '  is  interpreted  as  '  greatly  {vawr)  cour- 

^  Kentigern  (Conthigemus)  means  *  Hound-lord'  and  Munghu  'my  Hound,'  cA 
bemg  Goidelic  for  '  hound '  and  of  common  occurrence  itself  as  a  man's  name. 

*^  See  Holder,  Alt-celt  Sprachschatz :  he  gives  Coel-ing,  Kynverch-ing,  Maelgyn- 
ing,  Cadell-ing,  Dogfeil-ing.  Sir  J.  Rh^s  adds  that  in  the  Mabinogi  of  Math  (73.29) 
dinodig  =  Dinoding  (Dinodig). 


/ 


220  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

teous  (rrnvyn).^  How  many  other  compounds  with  the 
adverb  -vaivr  are  known  ?  They  must  be  extremely  rare,  and 
it  is  odd  that  the  only  other  instance  of  this  one  quoted 
in  the  dictionary  is  applied  to  another  prince.  The  escort 
of  Aidan  numbered  303  men,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  his 
ancestor's  name  should  be  written  muintermhor,^ '  of  the  great 
retinue,'  and  that  mwynvawr  is  a  corrupted  form  of  the  same 
meaning.  Whether  it  is  a  Welsh  word  at  all,  or  simply  the 
Goidelic  epithet  borrowed  (just  as  we  speak  of  the  Louis 
Quatorze  style),  I  do  not  know ;  but  in  either  case  the 
mwyn  has  been  cut  down  from  something  like  muinter. 

Let  me  add  a  very  curious  confirmation.  Professor 
Anwyl,  on  p.  26  of  his  Wales  and  the  Britons  of  the  North, 
refers  to  a  Triad  which  tells  of  the  '  Three  Horse-loads  of 
the  Isle  of  Britain.'  One  is  that  of  the  horse  of  Elid}^* 
Mwynvawr,  '  And  the  second  horse-load  was  borne  by 
Coruann,  the  horse  of  the  sons  of  Eliffer  Gosgorduavr 
(ElifFer  of  the  Great  Retinue),  who  carried  upon  him 
Gwrgi  and  Peredur.'  Now  Elidjnr  and  Eliffer  are  merely 
two  forms  of  the  same  excessively  rare  name.  We  have 
'  Eleutner  cascord  maur '  and  his  sons  Gurci  and  Peredur 
in  No.  XII.  of  the  '  Harleian  Genealogies,'  compiled  in  the 
late  10th  century,  and  he  was  contemporary  with  Aidan. 
I  submit  that  Elidyr  Mwynvawr,  who  had  married  a 
daughter  of  Maelgwn  Gwynedd,  and  therefore  lived  at  this 
same  time,  is  the  same  man,  and  that,  just  as  Elidyr  is  an 
older  form  of  Eliffer,  so  Mwynvawr  is  the  older  synonym  of 
Gosgorduavr. 

Gosgord  in  the  line  above  quoted  is  quite  impossible  for 
the  year  596.  It  is  a  spurious  and  late  form,  generated 
by  syntactic  mutation.  Even  in  the  late  10th  century 
(see  above)  it  was  cascord,  and  in  a  10th  century  gloss  (pro- 

*  As  the  derivation  of  muinter  has  hitherto  been  a  puzzle,  let  me  say  that  it  is 
from  ministerium  in  its  late  sense  of  *  retinue.'  For  s  dropped  after  a  liquid,  see  Gram, 
Cdt,  p.  801,  cinteir  for  cingteir.  The  u  is  due  (if  not  to  dissimilation)  probably  to  a 
false  derivation  from  munus. 

In  Welsh  muinter  would  naturally  become  mvryn/ner  (as  hanter  has  become  h<mner\ 
and  from  this  the  passage  by  '  Volksetymologie '  to  mwyn  seems  easy  enough. 


i 


BATTLE  OF  EAITH  AND  ITS  SONG-CYCLE     221 

bably  Cornish  or  of  a  neighbouring  dialect  ^)  it  is  casgoord 
Gram.  Celt,  p.  1062). 


§  4.     The  Localities 

Now  for  localities. 

As  regards  Baith  itself,  I  have  had  to  consider  care- 
fully the  claims  of  Raith  and  Little  Raith,  the  latter  about 
3  miles  W.  of  the  former.  I  have  decided  for  Raith  on 
the  following  grounds.  If  the  songs  numbered  69  and 
70  refer  to  this  battle,  as  they  presumably  do,  there  was, 
according  to  Stephens,  a  '  conflict  at  the  confluence  before 
the  course,'  a  '  mount,'  a  '  confluence  on  the  boundary '  ; 
while,  according  to  Silvan  Evans  (Skene),  there  was  '  a 
conflict  at  the  Aber  in  front  of  the  course.  The  pass  and 
the  knoll  were  in  conflagration,'  there  was  a  '  mount,'  and 
there  was  '  a  fire  at  the  Aber  in  front  of  the  fence.'  It  is 
clear,  then,  that  there  was  an  Aber  (inflow) ;  but  there  is 
no  inflow  between  Carden  and  Little  Raith  (the  GeUy 
burn  flowing  out  of  Loch  Gelly,  not  into  it),  while  there 
is  an  inflow  of  a  smaller  burn  into  the  Dronachy  burn  ^  in  the 
'  pass '  down  which  the  squadron  would  ride,  and  below  a 
'  mount,'  to  wit,  Comrie  Hill,  on  which  stands  Raith  Tower, 
(built  upon  the  site  of  a  tumulus). 

Eidin  is  of  repeated  occurrence,  and  is  not  Edinburgh. 
In  No.  13  we  have  the  fort  of  Eidyn  as  a  place  from 
which  men  came  to  the  battle ;  in  17  the  hall  of  Eidyn 
as  the  scene  of  the  wine-feast  before  it  (which  puts 
Edinburgh  out  of  the  question);  in  18  Eidjni  as  the 
starting-place  of  the  doomed  three  hundred ;  and  in  the 
Gorchan  Maelderw  we  have  the  mead  (i.e.  liquor)  of  Eidin 
coupled  with  the  generalship  of  Mynydawc  and  the  fatal 
ride  (Stephens,  p.  348;  Skene,  vol.  i.  p.  421).  The  name 
represents  an  earlier  Etin,  Goidelic  plural  of  a  word  meaning 

1  See  Loth,  Vocahulaire  Vieux-bretoTij  -pp.  24-7.  His  conjecture,  and  Mr.  Silvan 
Evans's,  that  the  a  in  casgoord  is  a  mistake  for  o  is  negatived  by  the  concurrent 
evidence  of  the  '  Harleian  Genealogies.' 

2  It  may  be  asked.  Why  not  the  inflow  of  the  Dronachy  bum  into  Raith  Lake  ? 
The  answer  is  that  Raith  Lake  is  a  modern  artificial  creation. 


222  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

'  brow^'  '  steep  slope,'  which  is  etan  in  O.  Irish,  aodann  in 
Highland  Gaelic  :  Edin  is  well  known  in  Highland  place- 
names,  such  as  Edinample.  In  this  same  county  of  Fife 
is  the  Eden  River,^  apparently  so  called  because  it  flows 
"from  the  slopes  of  the  Ochils.  The  Eidin  of  the  poems  is 
probably  the  high  land  ab({Ve  the  coast. 

Long  after  writing  this  conjecture,  I  obtain  virtual 
proof  of  it.  Professor  Anwyl  (Wales  and  the  Britons  of  the 
North,  p.  37)  says  that  in  the  Gorchan  Cynvelyn,  attributed 
to  Haneirin,  '  the  place-names  Caer  Eidyn  ( =  Caredin), 
Gododin,  and  Catraeth  are  Northern.'  Now  Carriden 
(Karedin  in  1250)  is  the  Kair  Eden  of  the  13th  cent.  MS. 
of  Gildas  which  Mommsen  calls  X  (see  his  ed.,  p.  18) ; 
but  I  submit  that  the  Caer  Eidyn  of  the  Gorchan  was 
not  in  Linlithgowshire  but  close  to  '  Catraeth.'  And 
in  the  Raith  song-cycle  there  is  plain  evidence  of  a 
fort  in  Eidyn.  In  13  we  have  eidyn  esgor,  '  Eidyn' s  fort,' 
as  a  starting-place  for  Catraeth ;  and  in  16  we  have 
'  echeching  gaer,'  '  Echeching's  caer  ' — Echeching  being 
Aidan.  This,  I  doubt  not,  was  Caer  Eidyn,  and  it  stood 
2J  miles  N.W.  of  Raith  House,  its  memory  perpe- 
tuate«|^m  the  ruin  called  Garden  Tower,'"^  where  Carden 
=  Car(e)den  (cf.  Carriden),  the  stress  being  thr6wn  back 
by  English  speakers,  and  the  consequently  unstressed 
second  syllable  being  then  lost  between  the  trilled  r  and  the 
following  consonant.^ 

Edinburgh  may  be  the  Dineidin  of  the  Gorchan  Mad- 
derw  (Stephens,  1.  959 ;  Skene,  vol.  i.  p.  420),  if  editors^ 
punctuation  is  correct : — 

Pan  doethan  doon  o  dineidin  parth 
*  When  strangers  ^  arrived  from  Dineidin  part ' 

\  Not  the  *  R.  Eden,'  aa  maps  call  it.  Many  are  the  Keltic  rivers  so  misnamed  in 
English  atlases.  In  Wales,  fbr  instance,  Afon  Seiont,  the'Seiont  river,  t.r.  the  river 
which  flows  by  oegontium,  but  not  the  *  R.  Seiont,'  which  is  as  absurd  as  it  would  be 
to  call  our  London  river  Thames  the  '  R.  London.' 

*  Also  the  nei:;hboiiring  Oardon-den. 

*  Cf.  our  world  (for  w^Wold),  rightly  scnnned  by  Bums  as  a  three- syllable  word. 

*  This  translation  of  deon  is  very  doubtful,  however  :  Professor  Anwyl  would  render 
*  nobles.' 


BATTLE  OF  EAITH  AND  ITS  SONG-CYCLE    223 

or  (Sir  J.  Rh^s  queries)  'from  the  direction  of 
Dineidin.'  In  that  case,  however,  it  would  not  be  the 
starting-place  of  the  ^doomed  300  but  of  their  enemies, 
who  would  presumably  have  sailed  across  the  Forth 
estuary.  On  the  other  hand,  it  seems  possible  to  render 
'  When  strangers  arrived,  from  Dineidin  part  every 
wise  man  of  the  country  was  banished,'  and  then  Dineidin 
is  presumably  in  Fife,  and  a  synonym  of  the  fort  of 
Eidin. 

Let  me  a^d  that  the  earliest  certain  mentions  of  Edin- 
burgh that  I  know  of  under  any  name  are  in  a  charter 
of  about  1128,  where  the  form  is  Edwinesburg-,  and  in 
Simeon  of  Durham,  who  died  in  1130  and  who  writes 
Edwinesburch :  if  those  forms  are  correct,  the  name  is 
clearly  derived  from  Edwin,  king  of  Northumbria,  who 
reigned  in  617-33.  The  Pictish  Chronicle,  completed  in 
the  late  10th  century,  says  that  in  Indulf's  reign  '  Oppidum 
Eden  vacuatum  est,  ac  relictum  est  Scottis  usque  in 
hodiernum  diem  '  (Chronicles  of  the  Pitts  and  Scots,  p.  10), 
b^t  even  that  might  be  Carriden  (Karedin  =  Car  Edin). 
Also  I  have  maintained  (Keltic  Researches,  p.  39)  that  in  the 
Legend  of  St.  Andrew  (Chronicles,  etc.,  p.  185)  ishundene  is 
blundered  from  is  Dunedene  and  means  '  below  Edinburgh  '  : 
but  the  reference  is  to  an  alleged  8th  century  charter, 
the  list  of  witnesses  to  which  is  the  most  barefaced  of 
forgeries.  Finally,  in  a  lost  13th  century  register  of 
St.  Andrews  (Chronicles,  etc.,  p.  175)  there  is  a  reference 
to  Dunedin  as  the  place  where  Edgar  died  in  1107,  but 
the  form  used  may  be  as  late  as  the  compilation  of  the 
chronicle  itseK,  which  was  not  before  1251.  In  short,  the 
Edwin-derivation  must  be  regarded  as  in  possession  with 
a  slightlj^  doubtful  title,  the  Edin-d^ri  /ation  as  a  claimant 
with  a  title  at  present  insufficiently  attested  but  possibly 
capable  of  being  established  by  further  evidence.  Only 
let  the  reader  insist  that,  when  any  alleged  evidence  in 
favour  of  Edin  is  quoted,  the  actual  words  shall  be  cited, 
the   exact  reference    given,    and   the   ground   stated  for 


/ 


J.  224  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

identifying  the  place  in  question  with  Edinburgh  instead 
of  (1)  with  Karedin,  (2)  with  Eidin  in  Fife. 

Dundee,  however,  unless  I  am  utterly  mistaken,  is 
mentioned  in  our  song-cycle.  It  occurs  in  No.  48,  which 
a  glance  at  Stephens's  apparatus  criticus  shows  to  have 
suffered  many  things  from  copyists,  and  which  abounds 
in  repeated  words.  Professor  Anwyl  ( Wales  and  the  Britons 
of  the  North,  p.  35)  quotes  : — 


*  0  dindy wyt  yn  dyvu 
Wyt  yn  dywovu.' 

('  From  Dindy  wyt  there  came  to  us 
Wit  (thence),  he  came  up  to  us.') 


I 


He  says  that  Dind3nv3rt  '  is  probably  in  the  North,'  equates 
Wyt  with  the  name  of  Wit  the  son  of  Peithan,  and  adds 
that  '  Wit  is  a  recognised  Pictish  name,  and  that  Peithan 
is  a  derivative,  probably  a  diminutive,  of  Peith  ( =  Pecht), 
whence  we  have  the  Welsh  plural  Peithwyr  (the  Picts).' 
Print  (in  modern  fashion) : — 

0  Dindy  Wyt  yn  dyvu  {or  dywovu) 
From  Dundee  Wyt  came  (up)  to  us, 

rejecting  the  second  'Wjrfc  yn  dywovu'  as  an  erroneous 
repetition.  In  the  version  of  the  song  given  in  the  Gorchan 
Maelderw  (variously  attributed  to  Haneirin  and  to  Taliessin) 
we  actually  have  only  '  0  dindyivyt  yn  dyowu.'  Let  me 
add  that  in  the  '  Gododin '  copy  '  dindovyt '  is  a  various 
reading,  and  that  in  the  Liber  de  Scon  (c.  1200)  Dundee  is 
found  as  Dundo.  Din  in  Welsh  is  the  equivalent  of 
Goidelic  dun. 

This  mention  of  Dundee  is  of  extraordinary  importance. 
Firstly,  because  there  was  no  previous  record  of  the  city's 
existence  before  about  1200 — so  that  6(X)  years  are  added 
to  its  history  by  one  single  word.  Secondly,  because  the 
name  of  the  man  who  came  thence  virtually  proves  that  it 
was  a  place  of  importance  even  in  596. 


BATTLE  OF  EAITH  AND  ITS  SONG-CYCLE    225 

He  was  beyond  reasonable  doubt  the  same  *  Uuid ' 
(gen.  case)/  three  of  whose  sons  became  kings  of  the  Picts 
successively  about  th^  years  631,  635,  and  640 — Gartnait  v., 
Brude  ii.,  and  Talarg  iv.  For  the  dates  suit  perfectly,  and 
no  other  instance  of  the  name  is  known.  As  to  Peithan, 
that  is  the  name  not  of  Wjrb's  father  but  of  his  mother :  ^ 
she  was  a  daughter  of  Brachan,  chief  of  Brechin :  in  his 
'  legend '  she  is  mentioned  in  the  Welsh  mutated^ form 
Beithan  and  is  called  '  filia  Brachan  in  Mannia,'  i.e.  in  the 
Manann  of  the  Tay  region.  Her  name  suggests  that  her 
mother  was  a  Pict,^  and  (as  the  Pictish  royal  succession 
was  through  females)  explains  her  grandsons'  accession  to 
the  Pictish  throne  ;  her  son  was  clearly  killed  in  the  battle 
of  Raith,  and  so  could  not  succeed  to  it.  He,  df.  course,  was 
first  cousin  to  Aidan. 

Mr.  W.  J.  Watson  tells  me  that  '  Dundee  is  Dundeadh, 
with  dh  pronounced  w  with  a  lingering  emphasis  (jaoow).' 
I  suggest  that  it  means  *  Fort  of  Diu,'  named  in  the  Pictish 
Chronicle  as  the  brother  of  a  king  who  reigned  in  the  3rd 
century,  and  whose  own  name  began  with  Deo- :  see  my 
Keltic  Researches,  p.  56.  The  Pictish  Chronicle  seems  to 
come  to  us  either  from  Brechin  or  from  near  it  (^|.,  p.  87), 
and,  if  Diu  gave  name  to  Dundee,  that  explains  why  he 
is  mentioned. 

Finally,  I  suggest  that  the  W  of  Wyt  =  two  separate 
It's,  of  which  the  former  belongs  to  the  previous  word — 

^  The  Pictish,  Irish,  and  Welsh  representations  of  the  name  oflfer  so  many  phonetic 
possibilities  that  I  am  obliged  to  leave  to  the  future  (if  life  be  long  enough !)  the 
determination  of  the  original  form  of  his  name.  That  it  occurs  as  Gwith  (Stephens, 
p.  228)  I  cannot  discover,  and  believe  to  be  a  blunder  (see  next  note). 

2  I  find  that  Stephens  knew  this.  He  adds  that  '  Wid  was  one  of  the  fourteen 
sons  of  Brudei,  the  celebrated  king  who  reigned  over  the  Southern  Picts  from  556  to 
586  (Skene's  Highlanders^  vol.  i.  250).'  This  statement  is  absolute  moonshine, 
spriuging  from  an  early  blunder  of  Skene's.  Skene  refers  to  a  certain  Guith  or  Gnith 
(the  latter  form  is  the  better  supported),  who  did  not  live  in  the  6th  century  a.d.  but 
in  the  1st  century  e.g.,  whose  parentage  and  the  number  of  whose  brothers  are  alike 
absolutely  unknown,  and  who  was  himself  ruler  over  the  Cruithni.  See  my  Keltic 
Researches,  p.  51. 

^  It  also  suggests  that  her  father  or  husband  spoke  Welsh — for  its  form  is  purely 
Welsh. 

VOL.  VI.  P 


TX 


V 


226  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

representing  Older  Welsh  Dindiu  Uit      We  should  then 

have  the  rime : — 

O  Dindyu 
Uyt  yn  dyvu. 

Mordei  = '  Tay-sea,'  t  passing  into  d  in  composition, 
and  ei  being  a  mere  phonetic  variation  of  eu  descended 
from  au  (see  Gram,  Celt.,  p.  107;  Pedersen,  VergL  Gram., 
p.  515) — so  that  Ptolemy's  Taov-as  became  Ten,  and  Mordei 
means  the  district  bordering  on  the  Tay  estuary. 

And  here  we  find  the  key  to  the  name  Godeu,  quoted 
by  Professor  ikiwyl  in  his  Wales  and  the  Britons  of  the 
North  from  three  passages  in  the  Book  of  Taliessin} 

In  the  first  (p.  42),  from  Poem  vrn.,  the  bard  says  that 
he  sang  '  yg  kat  godeu  brie  Rac  prydein  wledic,'  '  in  the 
outskirts  of  the  battle  of  Godeu  before  the  over-lord  of 
Picts.'^  In  the  second  (p.  45),  from  Poem  xxxiv.,  we  have 
'  Yg  godeu  g6eith  myna6,'  '  in  Godeu,  action  of  Myna6.' 
In  the  third  (p.  46),  from  Poem  xxxvi.,  we  find  Godeu 
coupled  with  Reget  (the  principality  of  Urbgen  Reget),  as 
setting  themselves  in  battle-array.  Here  we  have  Godeu 
in  aUiance  with  Picts  and  Britons,  and  as  the  scene  of  the 
battle  of  Manann.  Professor  Anwyl  says  (p.  41),  'It  looks 
as  if  the  real  Goddeu  were  a  district  in  the  North.'  It  was, 
in  fact,  the  district  go  Deu,  '  below  Tay,'  the  D  being  merely 
the  necessary  syntactic  mutation  (after  go)  of  the  T  in  Teu. 

Mordei  also  seems  to  me  to  throw  light  on  another 
passage  in  the  Booh  of  Taliessin,  Professor  Anwyl  quotes 
(p.  44),  from  Poem  xltv.  : — 

*  Ymordei  vffin 
Ymorhred  gododin.' 

*  In  Mordei  of  Vffin 
In  the  long  course  of  Gododin.' 

I  suggest  that  mor  is  of  the  same  meaning,  '  sea,'  in  both 
compounds,  and  that  morhred  =  not  the  '  long  course,'  but 

^  May  it  not  also  be  a  place-name  in  1.  720  of  Stephen's  text  ? 
*  Prydein  =  0.  Welsh  Priten  =  Qrtanoi  or  Cruithni,  otherwise  called  Picts — Welsh 
F  as  usual  representing  Ind.-Eur.  Q. 


\ 


BATTLE  OF  KAITH  AND  ITS  SONG-CYCLE    227 

the  sea-Gourse,  probably  the  Firth  of  Forth.  Uffin  also 
occurs  in  the  Raith  song-cycle  in  a  line  translated  in  Skene 
(vol.  ii.  p.  402),  'Ere  he  was  slain  on  the  green  plain  of 
Uffin,'  where  the  Welsh  contains  no  preposition  before  Uffin. 
I  suggest  that  the  word  is  not  the  name  of  a  district,  but 
that,  as  vfern,  uffern  =  infernum  {Gram,  Celt,  p.  117),  so 
uffin  =  in  fine,  i  ffin,  *  on  the  frontier.'  In  Stephens  (1.  732) 
we  have  '  orfun  gododin'  with  various  readings  or  fin  and 
orffin,  rendered  by  him,  '  on  the  confines  of  Gododin,'  and  in 
Skene  (vol.  i.  p.  400),  '  the  extreme  boundary  of  Gododin.' 
Here  I  take  or  to  be  the  mutation  of  gor  =  '  super,'  a  particle 
and  once  also  a  preposition,  and,  if  so,  it  would  be  a 
formation  parallel  to  umffin. 

Professor  Anwyl  says  (p.  35) :  '  In  one  place  there  is 
an  allusion  to  '  Kynted  Eidyn '  (the  hall  of  Eiddin),  '  and 
to  a  place  called  Keui.'  I  suppose  No.  17  is  referred  to. 
Keui  =  Pit-kevy,  about  8  miles  N.  of  Raith. 

'  The  river  Anhon,'  mentioned  by  Professor  Anwyl, 
seems  to  occur  in  '  gwananhon,'  named  in  connexion  with 
Gwarthan  the  son  of  Dunawd  (according  to  the  super- 
scription of  the  song).  Stephens  (1.  728)  renders,  '  Weak  is 
Annandale,  since  he  is  in  the  grave ' :  ^  Silvan  Evans  (Skene, 
vol.  i.  p.  400),  '  Gwananhon  will  be  his  grave.'  '  Annan  ' 
is  found  as  Annent  about  1124  and  as  Anant  in  1152; 
and,  since  nh  points  to  earlier  nt,  I  suggest  that  Gwananhon, 
like  Godeu  and  Guotodin  (also  written  in  the  '  Gododin ' 
MSS.  with  Gw-),  is  a  district-name  formed  with  the  preposi- 
tion guo,  go,  and  Ananton — whether  or  not  the  -on  of  the 
latter  is  part  of  the  name  of  the  river  or  a  regional  suffix 
(as  in  Ceredigion  (earlier  Cereticiaun), '  the  land  of  Ceretic '). 

Caerwys  is  not,  as  supposed,  the  name  of  an  unknown 
town,  but  contains  the  adjectival  suffix  -wys  =  Lat.  -enses,^ 
It  means   '  the  men  of  Cary,'  i.e.  ^stle  Gary,  midway 

1  But  '  guanannon '  or  '  gwannannon '  is  found  in  1.  396,  from  the  Gorchan  Mael- 
derw,  which  Stephens  translates  '  They  pierced  ;  the  result  of  mead  was  the  manliness 
of  the  heroes ' — while  in  the  Four  Ancient  Books  of  Wales  the  same  line  is  rendered 
'  Gwannannon,  honoured  in  the  mead  banquet,  whose  prowess  I  will  extol ' ! 

2  In  the  Flintshire  Caerwys  the  adjective  has  become  a  place-name. 


228  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

between  Falkirk   and  Kirkintilloch.     There  is  a  Roman 
fort  there,  and  Cary  =  Welsh  plural  Caerew  =  Castra.     The 
»  English  family-names  Carew  (pronounced  Cary)  and  Cary 
are  derived  from  a  Pembrokeshire  CaereUy  Carew,  Carey. 

'Ar  beithing'  (No.  28,  Stephens,  p.  192),  for  which 
'  Arceithing  '  is  a  various  reading,  is  not  '  upon  the  Picts  ' 
but  *  upon  Keithing,'  that  is,  the  '  Keithing  bur;v,'  which 
falls  in  &t  Inverkeithing,  not  far  from  Raith.  Ceithing 
represents  the  Goidelic  form  ;  but  for  Goidelic  c  arising 
out  ctf  original  q  Kymric  regularly  has  p,  and  '  beithing ' 
is  simply  the  syntactically  mutated  form  of  Peithing,^  as 
Beithan  of  Peithan.  Perhaps  the  battle  was  the  same  as 
the  '  Kat  ym  ynuer,'  '  Battle  about  Inver,'  quoted  by 
Professor  Anwyl  ( Wales  and  the  Britons  of  the  North,  p.  46) 
from  Poem  xxxvi.  of  the  Book  of  Taliessin, 

There  is  a  passage  translated  by  Stephens  (p.  337) : — 

The  fattest  spotted  mountain  grouse 

And  the  noblest  fish  from  the  falls  of  the  Derwent.^ 

Here  '  mountain '  is  represented  in  the  text  by  o  venyd 
and  '  Derwent '  by  derwennyd,  riming  to  it.  Now  I  am 
certain  that  at  any  date  approaching  596  the  form  would 
have  been  Deruentid — if  the  local  termination  id-  existed 
so  early  at  all.  But  then  what  becomes  of  the  rime 
with  venyd,  which  is  obviously  meant  to  be  double  ? 
Well,  venyd  is  itseK  suspicious,  because  the  very  last  rime 
preceding  is  vynyd  .  .  .  penn  hyd,  and  vynyd,  venyd  are  the 

*  Skene's  text  gives  peithyng  as  the  next  word,  instead  of  Stephens's  perthyng  :  it  is 
doubtless  a  various  reading  or  gloss  to  beithmg.  The  translation  of  the  line  in  Skene 
is  quite  different. 

"  If  Derwent  in  596,  why  are  none  of  our  four  Derwents  called  Derwentid? 
Professor  Anwyl  (p.  36)  says, '  The  name  Derwennyd  seems  to  correspond  to  Derventio.' 
As  late  as  the  early  8th  century,  Bede  (H.  jf.,  4,  29)  calls  the  Cumberland  Derwent, 
which  was  surely  in  a  Welsh-speaking  district''(cf.  Penrith),  Deruuention-,  and  a  century 
or  so  later  still  his  translator  calls  it  (in  th^genitive)  Deorwentan,  suggesting  nom. 
Deorwente,  Whether  rferwennyd  =  Derwent  or  the  Derwent-country,  the  reference 
probably  is  to  the  Derbyshire  river.  The  Cumberland  Derwent  has  no  '  falls '  (or  can 
rayadyr  mean  '  rapids '  ?)  which  would  fit  the  sense,  but  its  rocky  tributary  the  Greta, 
which  joins  it  a  few  hundred  yards  below  Derwentwater,  is  sometimes  invaded  by 
excellent  salmon  coming  up  the  Derwent  from  the  sea.  Our  remaining  Derwents  were 
in  hostile  territory. 


BATTLE  OF  RAITH  AND  ITS  SONG-CYCLE      229 

same  word :  to  use  the  same  word  for  two  consecutive 
rimes  is  very  poor  art  indeed.  Therefore  emend  venyd 
(vennyd),  from  that  Middle  Welsh  form  restore  earlier 
ventid,  and  render  o  ventid  '  from  Menteith.'  The  oldest 
recorded  form  of  Menteith  is  Meneted  (see  my  Keltic 
Researches,  p.  10) ;  and  of  course  the  M  would  mutate  here 
into  V,' 

§  5.     The  Name  of  the  Cycle 

Next,  for  the  title  given  to  the  song-cycle,  '  Y  Gododin,' 
*  The  Gododin.'  '  Gododin,'  of  course,  is  in  the  current 
text  of  these  poems  primarily  the  name  of  a  people  and 
country,  in  or  close  to  which  the  battle  took  place.  As 
regards  those  passages  in  which  it  is  interpreted  as  the 
name  of  the  poems  themselves,  they  are  worse  than  incon- 
clusive. Nowhere  do  the  poems  state  that  they  are  so 
called  — or  that  any  poem  is  so  called — and  nowhere  do 
they  speak  of  the  '  Gododin.'  We  merely  find  the  two 
phrases  '  Gododin  does  not  (or  will  not)  relate '  (Stephens's 
ed.,  pp.  144,  352)  and  '  Does  not  Gododin  relate  ?  '  (pp.  192, 
300) — ^.e.,  as  I  take  it,  the  people  of  the  country  in  question. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  the  title  is  a  sheer  blunder;  for  the 
poems  are  not  concerned  with  the  '  Gododin '  country  (or 
its  history)  at  large,  but  only  with  the  men  who  fell  in  a 
single  disastrous  encounter — and  those  not  necessarily  men 
of  '  Gododin.' 

It  might,  indeed,  be  seriously  questioned  whether 
'Gododin'  (as  distinct  from  'Ododin')  was  even  the  name 
of  a  people  or  country.  It  might  be  alleged  to  be  a  '  ghost- 
word  '  arising  out  of  a  misunderstanding  of  Manaw  Gododin 
=  Manaw  go  Ododin,  '  Manaw  below  the  Otadini,'  as  distin- 
guished from  one  or  more  other  Menapian  settlements 
known  as  Manaw.  That  was  my  own  strong  belief,  but 
the  discovery  of  Godeu  =  Below  Tay,  as  the  name  either  of 
that  or  a  neighbouring  district,  satisfies  me  that  the  early 

1  I  have  various  other  identifications  in  mind  as  possible,  but  they  must  wait  for 
the  judgment  of  some  one  who  can  decide  between  conflicting  versions  of  the  text. 


230  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Welsh  did  use  the  preposition  guo,  go,  as  the  first  element 
in  place-names.^  At  the  time  when  our  song-cycle  claims 
to  have  been  composed,  the  form,  however,  would  be  not 
Gododin,  but  Guotodin,^  Guotaudin,  Guotadin,  Votodin, 
Votaudin,  or  Votadin — probably  one  of  the  two  last.* 

§  6.     Date  and  Authorship 

Lastly,  as  to  date  and  authorship. 

Nothing  would  have  pleased  me  better  than  to  continue 
to  believe,  as  I  once  did,  that  these  poems  (of  course  in  an 
earlier  phonetic  state)  were  all  the  work  of  one  man,  writing 
about  596 — and  that  man  Haneirin.  I  regret  to  say  that 
such  a  belief  is  no  longer  possible  to  me,  though  I  know  no 
reason  why  some — even  most^ — of  them  may  not  have 
originated  as  early,  and  though  there  seems  to  me  a  very 
strong  a  priori  presumption  that  any  which  contains  the 
name  Min  (A)idauc  did — not  to  speak  of  the  abundance 
of  incidents  and  allusions  which  suggest  contemporaneous 
authorship.  The  grounds  on  which  I  refuse  to  believe  that 
they  are  all  from  the  same  hand,  or  all  contemporary,  are 
these. 

If  the  story  they  tell  is  true  throughout,  there  can  be  no 
reasonable  question  that  the  bard  would  know,  or  be  able 
to  ascertain,  the  number  of  the  escort  whom  he  accompanied 
on  the  fatal  ride,  and  would  know,  or  be  able  to  ascertain, 
how  many  had  escaped  from  it.  He  does  not  say  that  his 
captivity  lasted  any  length  of  time ;  and  it  is  morally  certain 
that  he  would  be  delivered  up  to,  or  return  to,  his  own  army. 
Now  the  discrepancies  on  those  two  points — how  many 
charged,  how  many  escaped — are  so  important  that  it  is 

*  Compare  Mr.  W.  J.  Watson's  article  on  fo  (the  same  preposition),  Cdiic  Review^  v.  1 48. 
^  Guotodin  is  the  form  in  the  Historia  Brittoimm^  §  62. 

3  There  seems  no  evidence  that  V-  changed  to  On-  in  any  Kymric  language  before 
the  8th  century,  or  even  the  beginning  of  the  9th.  And  a  became  au  before  passing  into 
0.    See  Loth,  Vocab.  Vieux-breton,  on  both  points. 

*  I  greatly  distrust  the  derwermyd  couplet,  however— even  after  restoring  deruentid. 
If  the  river  is  meant,  I  should  have  expected  something  like  Deruention  ;  if  the  country, 
something  like  Deruentionio  or  Deruentionid.  But  the  poem  need  not  be  connected 
with  *  Catraeth,'  or  the  couplet  may  be  an  interpolation. 


BATTLE  OF  EAITH  AND  ITS  SONG-CYCLE    231 

beyond  all  reasonable  probability  to  attribute  them  to  the 
same  man,  if  that  man  was  himself  in  the  ride.  There  were 
apparently  at  least  ^three  writers,  whom  I  will  call  A,  B,  C, 
while  A  may  possibly  be  not  one  man  but  four,  whom  I  will 
distinguish  as  AS  A^  A^  A*. 

A^  writes  of  Min(A)idauc.  He  puts  the  retinue  at  300 
(Nos.  10,  59,  60),  and  says  only  1  returned  (Nos.  59,  60, 
once  atcorsant)  or  escaped  (No.  78 — Skene's  76). 

A^  writes  of  Min(A)idauc.  He  says  (No.  31)  that  a 
certain  Aedan  escaped  from  the  fight  with  a  broken  shield, 
but  did  not  return  to  Ms  home, 

A^  speaks  of  300,  of  whom  only  1  escaped.  This  is  in 
the  Gorchan  Maelderw  (Stephens,  p.  338;  Skene,  vol.  i. 
p.  417). 

A*  speaks  of  3  chiefs  and  300,  of  whom  none  returned 
(atcorsant).  This  also  is  in  the  Gorchan  Maelderw  (Stephens, 
p.  340;  Skene,  vol.  i.  p.  417). 

B  writes  of  M'A(i)dauc.  He  says  (Nos.  2,  68)  that  only 
one  man  from  a  hundred  (o  gant)  came  before  M'A(i)dauc's 
tent  when  he  returned.  This  implies  either  that  the 
squadron  consisted  of  (approximately)  100,  or  that,  if  it 
consisted  of  (approximately)  300,  then  3  returned. 

C  says  (No.  21),  as  translated  by  Stephens  : — 

(Of)  three  warriors,  three  score,  and  three  hundred  wearing  golden 

torques 
.  .  .  Three  alone  escaped  by  the  vigour  of  their  blows — 
Aeron's  two  war-dogs,  and  the  dauntless  Cenon, 
And  I  who  escaped  from  the  shedding  of  my  blood  by  virtue  of  my 

sacred  muse. 

The  same  numbers  3  +  60  +  300  are  given  in  the  Gorchan 
Cynvelyn  attributed  to  Haneirin,  and  3  only  are  said  to  have 
returned  (Skene,  vol.  i.  p.  414;  Stephens,  p.  191  note,  atcor(a)' 
sant).  Their  names  are  given  as  Cynon,  Cadraeth  or 
Catreith,^  and  Cathleu. 

^  I  very  strongly  suspect  we  should  read  'Namyn  tri  nyt  atcorsant  Cynon  a 
Gatraeth  a  Chatleu  a  Chatuant,'  i.e.  Three  alone  returned  from  Raeth  battle — Cynon  y 

and  Catleu  and  Catuant. 


232  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Here  the  number  of  the  escaped  is  in  absolute  conflict 
with  A\  A^  A\  and  the  Aedan  of  A^  is  not  included. 

The  number  of  the  escort  is  also  in  absolute  conflict 
with  A\  A^  A*.  It  may,  indeed,  be  suggested  that  the 
'  three  score '  were  part  of  the  '  three  hundred ' — each 
hundred  being  formed  in  columns  20  x  5,  and  that  the  score 
are  the  20  picked  men  in  the  front  line.  But  that  would  be 
a  sadly  forced  explanation,  and,  when  I  read  in  the  Gram- 
matica  Celtica,  p.  1062,  '  gosgordd  brenin  yw  360  wyr  (regis 
satellites  sunt  360  viri)  Leg.'  \  I  cannot  doubt  that  the 
number  has  been  doctored  from  300  (excluding  the  3  chiefs) 
to  360  to  agree  with  that  of  the  escort  of  a  king  of  Gwynedd." 

I  find  that  Skene  (vol.  ii.  pp.  363,  377)  has  observed  the 
difference  in  numbers  and  accounts  for  it  thus  (p.  377) :  '  The 
stanzas  opening  "  Men  went  to  Catraeth  "  seem  to  indicate 
different  events  in  the  war,  and  the  fate  of  different  portions  of 
the  combatants.  This  stanza  commemorates  a  body  consist- 
ing of  363  heroes,  who  were  different  from  the  300  who  formed 
the  retinue  of  Mynyddawg.'  That  there  should  be  even  in 
the  same  war  two  such  charges,  of  numbers  so  near  to  each 
other,  and  in  each  case  composed  of  tipsy  or  haK-tipsy  men, 
is  a  little  too  unlikely  :  one  such  disaster  would  surely  have 
been  a  warning  which  would  have  prevented  its  repetition. 
But  it  is  a  case  not  of  the  same  war  but  of  the  same  battle 
(specified  by  name  in  both  accounts),  and  none  of  the  songs 
gives  us  any  hint  that  there  were  two  separate  squadrons 
charging.     The  explanation  is  incredible. 

Of  the  correctness  of  the  lower  number  we  have  striking 
presumptive  evidence  in  the  story  quoted  by  Skene  (Celtic 
Scotland,  vol.  i.  p.  161)  from  Adamnan's  Life  of  Columba 
(i.  c.  8),  that  Columba  saw  in  spirit  a  battle  in  which  Aidan 

*  I  cannot  verify  the  quotation,  but  I  cannot  suppose  it  to  be  an  invention. 

'  Professor  Anwyl  ( Wales  and  the  Britons  of  the  Norths  p.  28)  refers  to  a  Triad 
which  names  The  Three  Pure  Households  of  the  Isle  of  Britain,  one  of  them  being 
that  of  Aedan,  son  of  Gabran,  'and  the  number  of  each  of  the  households  was  a 
hundred  and  twenty-one  men.'  Probably  an  earlier  form  of  this  Triad  mentioned 
'  three  warriors,  three  score,  and  three  hundred,'  and  a  later  editor  mistook  this  to 
mean  that  each  of  the  three  households  had  one  warrior,  one  score,  and  one  hundred. 


BATTLE  OF  RAITH  AND  ITS  SONG-CYCLE    233 

and  his  people  were  engaged,  and  in  which  the  '  barbarians ' 
ultimately  fled,  but  in  which  Aidan  lost  303  men.  That 
these  should  not  be  the  303  referred  to  by  A*  is  almost  too 
singular  a  coincidence  to  be  entertained.  Adamnan  died 
r  in  704. 

On  the  very  uncertain  hypothesis  that  all  songs  begin- 
ning with  the  same  line  were  written  by  the  same  man,  and 
none  by  an  imitator,  I  attributed  to  A^  those  numbered 
by  Stephens  6-14,  21,  33;  58-60;  78.  To  A^  31-2.  A^ 
author  of  94,  and  A*,  author  of  93,  begin  so  similarly  that  I 
considered  them  one  person.  B  I  took  to  have  written  2-5 ; 
68,  77.  But  this  division  gives  to  A^  the  only  song,  21, 
certainly  written  by  C,  who  cannot  possibly  be  the  same 
person  unless  the  text  has  been  altered  and  interpolated. 
I  am  compelled  therefore  to  regard  C  as  an  imitator,  and 
as  the  possible  author  of  other  songs  which  on  the  hypothesis 
referred  to  I  assigned  to  other  hands. 

As  regards  the  question  whether  Haneirin  was  one  of 
the  writers,  the  following  are  the  essential  facts.  He  is 
mentioned  in  No.  52,  which,  according  to  Stephens,  says  that 
'  The  pitiful  slaughter  and  piercing  of  the  delightful  pillar 
of  conflict  has  been  the  cause  of  separating  thee  from 
Aneurin ' :  the  song  mentions  a  son  ^  of  Dwjrwei,  said  to  be 
wife  of  Dunawd — and  the  death  of  a  king  Dunawt  is 
recorded  by  the  Annales  Cambriae  under  595,  the  year 
before  the  battle  of  Raith.  This  looks  genuine  enough 
(though  the  translation  in  Skene  does  not  take  dwywei  as  a 
proper  name),  '  Aneurin  '  riming  with  various  words  in  -m. 
The  only  other  mention  of  him  by  name  is  on  pp.  250-1, 
where  his  imprisonment  is  described,  where  he  says  his 
intention  to  sing  of  Catraeth  is  known  to  Talyessin,  and 
where  again  his  name  rimes  with  words  in  -in.  Now  in  the 
Historia  Brittonum,  §§  61-2,  we  are  told  that  Ida  reigned 
12  years  ;  then  '  Dutigirn '  in  that  time  was  fighting  (or 

^  Are  we  sure  that  0  gyssul  mob  dwywei  is  not  '  from  Consul  son  of  Dwywei '  ? 
Gyssul  is  the  syntactic  mutation  of  Cyssul,  which  may  be  a  proper  name  borrowed 
from  Lat.  Consul.  There  is  the  same  doubt  about  gussyl  in  No.  4,  '  0  gussyl  mab 
ysgyran.' 


234  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

used  to  fight,  dimicohat)  against  the  race  of  Angles  ;  then 
Talhaern  Tataguen  and  Neirin  ^  and  Taliessin  and  Bluchbard 
and  Cian  caUed  '  Gueinth  Guaut '  (sic)  simultaneously  at 
one  time  shone  in  British  poesy  ;  Mailcunus,  the  great  king, 
was  reigning  among  the  Britons  in  Guenedota.  Ida's  reign 
is  dated  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  from  547,  and 
Maelgwn  Gwynedd  died  in  a  plague  which  the  Annates 
Camhriae  place  in  547.^  In  other  words,  we  have  8th 
century  evidence  that  Haneirin  and  Taliessin  both  flourished 
nearly  half  a  century  before  the  battle  of  Raith.  I  do  not 
say  that  the  8th  century  evidence  is  necessarily  accurate 
in  its  chronology.  I  do  not  say  that  if  it  is  accurate  it 
forbids  us  to  believe  that  the  two  poets  were  still  alive  in  596: 
Tennyson  and  Browning  were  both  writing  simultaneously 
at  dates  54  years  apart.  But  I  do  say  that,  in  face  of 
the  demonstrably  composite  origin  of  the  song-cycle,  any 
alleged  connexion  ^  with  writers  believed  to  have  flourished 
nearly  haK  a  century  earlier  should  not  be  accepted  without 
strict  investigation.  I  may  add  that  in  a  forthcoming  paper 
on  '  Taliessin  '  and  '  Vgnach  '  I  shall  show  reason  to  believe 
that  '  Vgnach,'  his  alleged  contemporary  at  Maelgwn' s 
court,  reaUy  was  there.  And,  finally,  were  Haneirin  the 
author  of  the  particular  song  which  commemorates  the  death 
of  Donald  Brecc,  h^  would  have  been  still  singing  in  642.* 
But  I  am  bound  to  say  that  his  name  does  not  occur  in  it. 

It  is  a  little  odd,  if  the  songs  containing  the  words 
catraeih,  '  battle  of  Raeth,'  are  really  contemporary,  that 
they  should  never  mention  Raeth  by  itself,  and  that  we 
should  have  not  only  the  phrases  breithyell  gatraeth  (No.  32, 
a  Mynydawc  song),  vreithell  gatraeth  (No.  15),  and  gynhen 

'  et  Neirin,  mistranslated  from  a  Welsh  original  haneirin  misread  as  ha  neirin. 
2  But  apparently  he  did  not  die  before  548 :  see  my  letter  in  The  Academy  of 
November  2,  1895. 

*  For  a  known  false  attribution  to  Taliessin,  see  the  Oram.  Cdt,  p.  968. 

*  This  has  been  observed  by  others.  Skene  interprets  No.  45  as  referring  not  to 
Haneirin's  prison,  but  to  his  tomb,  from  which  a  later  poet  professes  to  evoke  him 
(vol.  ii.  p.  360) !  Skene's  usual  good  sense  has  gone  napping  :  did  he  really  suppose 
that  the  Welsh  bards  were  buried  with  hands  bound  and  an  iron  chain  round  their 
knees? 


BATTLE  OF  EAITH  AND  ITS  SONG-CYCLE    235 

gatraeth  (No.  25) — which  can  be  construed  consistently 
with  the  real  meaning  of  catraeth — but  also  am  gatraeth 
(No.  63),  where  am  means  '  round  about.'  If  am  is  correct, 
the  writer  would  certainly  seem  to  have  been  under  the 
illusion  that  cat  was  part  of  the  name  of  the  place.  But 
the  right  Middle  Welsh  reading  may  be  yg  cat  raeth,  '  in 
Raith  battle,'  and  we  never  get  '  cat  catraeth,'  '  battle  of 
Catraeth,'  which  would  have  proved  the  existence  of  such 
an  illusion  among  the  writers  of  the  cycle. 

Now  that  Dr.  J.  Gwenogvryn  Evans  is  about  to  publish 
the  text  of  the  oldest-known  MS.  of  the  songs,  I  trust 
they  and  the  other  poems  attributed  to  Haneirin  may  not 
have  to  wait  long  for  the  critical  investigation  of  a  competent 
Old  Welsh  scholar.  May  that  scholar  give  us  not  only  the 
best  critical  Middle  Welsh  text  in  his  power,  but  side  by  side 
with  it  the  nearest  approximation  he  can  conjecture  to  the 
Old  Welsh  original.  If,  in  preparing  that,  he  finds  reason 
anywhere  to  suspect  that  the  Welsh  is  translated  from  a  lost 
Goidelic,  I  hope  he  will  tell  us.  I  do  not  suggest  that  it  is 
so  even  in  the  case  of  one  single  song,  but  'mwynvaur' 
makes  it  necessary  to  keep  one's  eyes  open  to  the  possibility, 
the  Welsh  dynasties  of  596  had  a  large  infusion  of  Goidelic 
blood,  and  I  shall  show  elsewhere  that  *  Vgnach,'  the  con- 
temporary of  Taliessin  and  a  bard  at  the  court  of  Maelgwn 
Gwynedd,  was,  beyond  any  reasonable  doubt,  a  Goidel  on 
one  side  at  least. 

Let  me  add  that  the  present  paper  must  not  be  mistaken 
for  a  special  study  of  the  Raith  song-cycle.  In  my  investiga- 
tion of  the  '  Harleian  Genealogies '  ( Y  Cymmrodor,  vol.  xxi.), 
I  came  across  a  man  whose  son  was  killed  at  '  Catraeth.' 
The  knowledge  that  'Catraeth'  was  still  unidentified  irritated 
me.  I  said,  '  It  ought  to  be  possible  to  identify  it.  I  '11  try : 
the  name  looks  like  "  battle  of  Raeth  "—don't  I  remember 
a  Raith  in  Johnston's  Place-names  of  Scotland  ?  '  In  a 
minute  or  two  I  had  found  Raith,  and  in  a  few  minutes 
more  I  had  found  the  Cath  Ratha  of  Irish  chronicles  which 
established  the  identification  and  gave  the  date.     I  could 


236  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

only  interpolate  the  barest  mention  of  the  matter  in  the 
paper  I  was  then  writing,  and  it  was  obviously  desirable  to 
make  it  the  subject  of  a  separate  communication.  In 
preparing  this,  I  looked  over  the  English  of  the  poems, 
certain  other  things  struck  me,  and  a  few  more  which  I  did 
not  see  at  the  moment  (for  instance,  the  identity  of  some  of 
the  place-names)  I  was  tempted  to  investigate  specially : 
that  is  all.  ^ 

TOPOGEAPHICAL  VARIA— III 

W.  J.  Watson 

fortair,  gwerthyr^  verterae 

In  the  Antonine  Itinerary  and  elsewhere  mention  is  made 
of  a  place  of  the  Brigantes,  called  Verterae,  identified  as 
to  site  with  the  modern  Brough-under-Stanmore  in  West- 
moreland. As  early  Celtic  initial  v  becomes  in  Welsh  gw, 
Verterae  has  been  equated  by  Sir  John  Rhys  with  Welsh 
gwerthyr,  a  fortress.  In  Gaelic,  on  the  other  hand,  early 
initial  v  becomes  /,  e.g.  Caulish  vernos,  alder ;  Welsh 
gwern ;  Gaelic  fearna,  I  have  learned  recently  from  Mr. 
Duncan  Jampbell,  late  editor  of  the  Northern  Chronicle,  a 
Glenlyon  man,  that  one  of  the  ancient  round  forts  in 
Glenlyon  is  called  in  Gaelic  an  Fhortair.  In  Glenisla  parish, 
Forfarshire,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Isla,  stands  an  ancient 
castle  of  the  Ogilvies,  named  Forter,  in  Gaelic  Fortair, 
while  Forthar  occurs  in  Kettle  parish,  Fife.  There  seems 
to  be  no  doubt  that  in  this  fortair  we  have  the  Gaelic  form 
of  the  old  Verterae,  meaning  fortress.  (Of  course,  not- 
withstanding the  similarity  in  sound  between  fort,  fortress, 
and  fortair,  there  is  no  connection  etymologicaUy,  the  two 
first  being  derived  from  Latin  fortis,  strong.)  From  these, 
again,  we  cannot  dissociate  jrtingal,  the  Englished  form 
of  Gaelic  Fartairchill,  spelled  Forterkil  in  1240,  situated 
hard  by  a  great  fortification,  reputed  but  not  yet  proved 
to  be  a  Roman  camp.  The  last  syllable  of  Fartairchill 
may  be  considered  doubtful,  but  there  is  no  reason  why 


TOPOGRAPHICAL  VARIA  ^         237 

it  should  not  be  simply  cill,  church,  the  meaning  of  the 
compound  being  Forter  Church,  or  Church  near  the  Forter. 
On  this  supposition*  Fartairchill  is  a  Picto-Gaelic  hybrid, 
of  a  type,  however,  which  is  natural  and  legitimate. 

I  have  several  times  pointed  out  the  tendency  of  certain 
terms  to  become  as  it  were  '  epidemic  '  in  certain  districts. 
There  is  no  clear  instance  known  to  me  of  fortair  occurring 
north  of  Spey.  In  Banff-  and  Aberdeen-shires,  however, 
three  or  four  places  spelled  Fortre  appear  on  record,  and 
in  South  Pictland  fortair  actually  gave  the  name  of  the 
great  district  of  Fortrenn,  an  oblique  case  of  a  nominative 
Foirtriu  (c/.  Eriu,  Erenn,  Ire-land),  meani  ig  the  district 
of  Forts.  The  men  of  Fortrenn,  as  has  been  pointed  out 
by  Sir  John  Rhys,  were  of  old  the  Verturiones,  the  folk 
of  the  Forts.  '  The  designation  Verturiones,'  says  Professor 
Rhys,  '  admits  of  being  explained  by  reference  to  the 
military  works  built  in  their  midst  by  Agricola  and 
Severus.'  It  is  perhaps  more  likely  that  the  name  is  due 
to  the  fort-building  propensities  of  the  natives  themselves ; 
certainly  the  district  is  rich  enough  in  Celtic  forts  to  justify 
the  title. 

ceithf  keith,  cSto-n 

The  Old-Celtic  ceto-n,  wood,  becomes  in  modern  Welsh 
coed,  e.g.,  Argoed,  3n-wood,  Woodsida ;  Lichfield,  in  Welsh 
LI  vyd  coed,  Grey  wood,  started  from  Leto-ceton.  Several 
continental  names  (v.  Holder)  show  the  same  element.  In 
Gaelic  phonetics  it  should  become  ciath,  genitive  ceith,  just  as 
letos,  grey,  becomes  Hath,  genitive  leith.  I  think  it  is  possible 
to  explain  some,  at  least,  of  our  Keith  names  by  reference 
to  this  old  word,  and  it  is  at  any  rate  worth  while  to  con- 
sider them.  Balmakeith  near  Nairn,  is  certainly  not  to 
be  so  explained,  for  the  Gaelic  form  of  it  is  Baile  Mac- 
Dhaidh,  Davidson's  Stead.  Balkeith,  near  Tain,  is  in 
Gaelic  at  the  present  moment  Baile  na  Coille,  Wood-stead, 
which,  as  I  pointed  out  long  ago,^  looks  uncommonly  like 

1  Place-Naines  of^Ross  and  -^romarty^  p.  34;  where  I  hare  referred   to  Welsh 
gvjyddy  which  seems  less  likely. 


238  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

a  translation  from  the  Pictish.  With  regard  to  the  others 
of  which  the  Gaelic  forms  are  known,  it  is  to  be  noted  that 
all  are  in  the  genitive  case.  We  have  (1)  Dalkeith,  in 
1142  Dalkied,  in  Gaelic  Dail-cheith  ;  (2)  Inchkeith,  Gaelic 
Innis-cheith  ;  (3)  Keith,  in  Banffshire,  Gaelic  Baile-cheith ; 
(4)  Dun-ch6ith,  a  hill,  in  the  parish  of  Dores,  Inverness, 
meaning  Plateau,  IsIq,  Town  and  Fort  of  the  wood  respec- 
tively. In  at  least  OAe  instance  of  frequent  occurrence 
we  appear  to  have  ceton  in  composition.  Cormac  in  his 
Glossary  explains  salchuait  as  '  willow  wood,'  for,  says  he, 
edit  in  Welsh  means  wood.  This  would  give  a  primitive 
*saliceton,  which  is  represented  in  Scotland  by  the  common 
Saileachaidhy  Sallachy,  Scots  Sauchie-burn.  We  have  pro- 
bably another  case  in  the  stream-name  Orchy,  Glen-orchy, 
Gaelic  Urchaidh,  representing  a  primitive  ^are-cetia,  On- 
wood  stream.  River  by  the  Woodside.  It  must  be  said 
that  on  the  Perthshire  side  Orchy  is  Urchadh;  *Gleann- 
urcha  nam  badan,'  says  John  MacGregor  (1801);  *Glen 
Orchy  of  Woodclumps.'  But  I  do  not  think  that  the 
difference  in  ending  is  fatal,  and  nam  badan  is  significant. 

As  has  been  indicated  above,  keith  in  Anglicised  forms 
of  Celtic  names  is  by  no  means  always  of  the  same  origin. 
Indeed  no  sound  in  such  forms  needs  closer  watching 
than  th,  for  th  in  Anglicised  names  may  represent  quite 
a  variety  of  things,  e,g.  Gaelic  th,  dh^  t  slender,  t  broad, 
hh  and  ch.  Thus  the  Iceiih  of  Inverkeithing  (see  next 
note)  is  entirely  different  from  that  in  Dalkeith. 

cethin 

The  three  following  names  appear  to  contain  the  same 
root : 

Inbhir-cheitein,  Inverkeithing. 
Loch  Ceiteirein,  Loch  Katrine. 
Allt  and  Gleann  Ceiteirlinn  ^Ceitlein  on  Maps),  off 
Glen  Etive. 
With  ceitein  of  the  first  may  be  compared  Welsh  cethin  dun, 
dusky  ;  c/.  Welsh  Bryncethin,  Dark  Hill.     The  Keithing  is 


TOPOGEAPHICAL  VAEIA  239 

opposed  to  the  Peffer  as  dark  to  bright.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  insist  on  referring  '  dark  '  and  '  bright '  in  stream  names 
to  the  actual  colour  of  the  water  ;  exposure,  or  the  presence 
or  absence  of  jthick  wood  were  doubtless  among  the  circum- 
stances that  originally  determined  the  name. 

In  Ceiteirein,^  Katrine,  we  seem  to  have  an  extension  ^f  ^ 

the  root  ceit,  meaning  the  dark  or  gloomy  place,  with  refer-  ^ 

ence  to  its  thickly  wooded  shores. 

Ceiteirlinn  seems  of  similar  formation,  ceiteir  +  ?  loinn, 
locative  of  lann.  The  glen  is  narrow  and  deep  with  a  north- 
west exposure. 

All  these  seem  to  be  thoroughly  Pictish  names.     There        ^ 
are  several  other  names  that  closely  resemble  them  and  may 
be  connected,  e,g,  Catrine  in  Ayrshire ;  Caterline,  Kincardine- 
shire ;  Caterthun  in  Forfarshire. 

eag 

Eag,  a  notch,  common  in  names  of  places,  is  as  a  rule 
easily  recognised.  In  two  instances,  at  least,  the  Anglicised 
form  carries  n  of  the  Gaelic  article,  in  front,  thus  becoming 
Nigg.^  Lately  I  came  across  an  instance  of  its  use  certain 
enough,  though  by  no  means  clear  at  first  sight.  In  the 
parish  of  Duthil,  to  the  east  of  Sloc-muic,  there  is  a  moor 
called  on  maps  Forrigen,  in  Gaelic  Foirigean  (close  o). 
The  clue  to  this  puzzling  combination  lies  in  the  fact  that 
the  plain  of  Forrigen  lies  at  the  foot  of  a  series  of  ridges 
containing  many  gullies  and  clefts,  collectively  called  in 
Gaelic  na  Ji-eagan^  the  notches.  The  first  part  for,  is  simply 
our  old  friend  foter  (from  /o,  under),  shortened  into  for  (far) 
though  aspiration  of  the  t,  as  happens  wherever  we  can 
get  hold  of  it  in  Gaelic.  Thus  Forrigen  means  '  Under,  at 
the  foot  of,  the  Notches.' 

^  5  do  not  know  whether  Welsh  cethern,  fiends,  furies,  is  connected  with  cethin, 
dusky.  If  it  is  genuine  Welsh  it  might  be  possible  to  translate  Loch  Katrine  *  Loch 
of  the  Fiends '  (Goblins).  This,  of  course,  at  once  suggests  connection  with  Coire  nan 
Uruisgean,  the  Goblin  Corry,  a  pleasant  speculation,  if  we  could  be  reasonably  sure 
of  it,  for  of  old  this  corfy  was  the  greatxfeature  of  Loch  Katrine. 

2  Place-names  of  Boss  and  Cromarty,  p.  50. 


240  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Foter  or  fother  becomes  far,^  as  well  as  for^  through  the 
tendency  to  change  an  old  o  into  a,  of  which  many  examples 
could  be  given.  Keeping  this  in  view,  we  shall  readily  see 
that  Farragon  Hill,  south  of  Loch  Tyjnmel  in  Perthshire, 
is  the  same  as  Forrigen,  and  if  further  proof  is  required, 
reference  to  the  map  will  show  Beivji^Eagach,  the  notched 
hill,  a  little  to  the  north-east  of  it.  Farragon  Hill  is  the  hill 
of  Farragon,  ^d  Farragon  itself  is  the  moor  under  Beinn 
Eagach. 

air :  ur 

The  preposition  air^  on,  before,  is  in  Old  Celtic  are, 
which  appears  in  such  words  as  Are-morica,  the  district 
by  the  sea,  and  the  British  Are-cluta,  Cluta-side,  men- 
tioned as  the  birthplace  of  Gildas.  With  us  it  appears  in 
composition  as  air  (ear)  or  ur,  e.g.  earball  or  urball  {air  + 
ball),  a  tail,  urlar  (air  +  ldr),  a  floor.  So  also  in  place- 
names. 

Erchless,  near  Beauly,  is  in  Gaelic  Earghlais,  '  on  the 
river  Glass,'   which  describes  its  situation  exactly.     We' 
may  compare  Are-cluta  above. 

Urchanyi  Beauly,  near  a  small  stream,  and  Urchany, 
Nairn,  are  both  for  air-canach,  on  the  white  stream  or 
white  place.  ^  For  Canach  as  a  stream  name,  cf.  Glen- 
cannich  and  Welsh  Aber-canaid. 

Urray,  in  Ross-shire,  Gaelic  Urrath,  is  for  air  +  rath,  near 
the  fort  or  earthwork,  and  in  Gaul  there  is  Are-dunon 
with  similar  meaning. 

Urquhart  occurs  in  Ross,  Inverness,  Moray  and  Fife. 
The  Inverness  Urquhart  appears  in  Adamnan's  Life  of 
Columha  in  the  form  Airchartdan,  in  present-day  Gaelic 
Urchardain,  and  has  been  satisfactorily  explained  by  Mac- 
Bain  as  air  +  cardden,  Welsh  ioif  wood,  brake;  oij-^nnd^. 
woodside,  s^oionymous  with  Arg^^ed  above-mentioned. 

Erchite,   near   Inverness,    is   in   Gaelic   Earchoid,   the 

1  Cf.  Fodderletter,  in  Gaelic  Farleitir  ;  Fettercaim,  £is  I  am  informed,  is  still  called 
by  old  people  Farcaim  in  English. 

*  Cf.  Inverness  Qadic  Society  TransactionSf  rol.  xxv.  p.  83.  •/ 


DUATHAEACHD  NA  MARA  241 

second  part  of  which  is  difficult,  and  may  be  compared 
with  Bldr-choighck,  Blairwhyte,  in  the  Black  Isle. 

Orchil,,  in  I^Tthshire,  is  in  Gaelic  Urchoill,  with  same 
■  pmjaning  as  Urqu'Tirt,  Woodside.  There  is  also  Errichel, 
near  Aberfeldy.  ,  t  is  to  be  noted  that  so  far  as  the  second 
part  of  these  goes,  the  names  may  be  comparatively  modern 
Gaelic  or  old  Pictish  :  the  word  for  wood  (Welsh  celli,  grove, 
Gaelic  coille,  wood)  being  common  to  both  bj-anches  of 
Celtic. 

Urrard,  in  Perthshire,  is  similarly  for  airi-drd,  On- 
height,  or  On-point. 

Orchy  has  been  already  noted. 

[Note. — Previous  papers  under  this  heading  appeared  in  vol.  v. 
pp.  148,  337.] 


DUATHARACHD  NA  MARA 

COINNEACH   MaCLEOID 

Theirteadh  gu  'm  '  bu  dual  do  isean  an  roin  dol  thun  na 
mara,'  's  tha  e  ceart  cho  dual  do  'n  Eileanach  a  shuil  's  a 
chridhe  's  a  lamh  a  thionndadh  ris  a'  Chuan  Shiar.  'S  gun 
tighinn  ;air  sin  idir,  ar  leam  gu  bheil  ni-eigin  an  litreachas 
na  mara,  doimhneachd  is  dian-theas  is  balbh-n^art,  nach 
'eil  idir  cho  trie  ri  'm  faotainn  an  litreachas  na  beinne. 
Theagamh  gu  bheil  da  ni  ag  aobharachadh  so.  Ma  ni  sinn 
garadh-criche  eadar  beul-aithris  agus  lamh-aithris,  eadar  na 
t)aird  a  ta  an  diugh  gun  ainm-baistidh  agus  na  baird  sin  a 
fhuair  an  cuid  bardachd  air  a  sgriobhadh  's  air  a  clo- 
bhualadh  fo  'n  ainm  's  'nan  latha  fein,  chi  sinn  gur  beul- 
aithris,  's  nach  idir  lamh-aithris,  a'  mhor-chuid  de  litreachas 
na  mara.  'S  tha  bhuil  air  an  aithris.  Ma  tha  aon  ni  ann  a 
ta  comharrachadh  nam  bard  sin  a  rinn  ceaird,  mar  gu  'm 
b'  eadh,  de  'n  bhardachd,  is  e  braisead  an  cainnte.  Tha 
na  facail  a'  taomadh  a  mach,  gu  trie  gun  urram  aon  d'  a 
cheile,  mar  eas  a  creig,  's  ge  dearbhadh  soilleir  e  air  feartan 
na  Gaidhlig — cho  sgaiteach  torrach  easgannach  's  as  urrainn 
di   bhith — cha    ghabh   e    aicheadh  nach  do   dhioghail   a' 

VOL.  VI.  Q 


/ 


/ 


242  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

bhardachd  air  anabarr  na  teangaireachd.  Nis  tha  litreachas 
na  mara  saor  o  'n  smal  sin,  a  chionn  gu  'n  do  sheachainn  na 
sar-bhaird  an  cuan  mar  cheann-bardachd.  Ma  's  e  Mac 
Mbaighstir  Alastair,  cha  do  chuir  an  cuan  riamh  gu  seina  e, 
mar  rinn  Allt  an  t-Siucair ;  cha  lugha  na  Birlinn  Chlann- 
Raonaill  chuireadh  gu  sal  e,  's  'na  bheachd-san  cha  robh  anns 
a'  chuan  ach  namhaid  eadar-dha-phort,  a  bha  dea^^bhadh 
fiughantas  na  birlinne  is  sgiobaireachd  nan  Raonallach. 

Tha  ni  eile  ann  cuideachd  a  ta  comharrachadh  o  cheile 
litreachas  na  mara  agus  litreachas  na  beinne.  A  reir  beachd 
an  t-sluaigh  bu  bheo-chreutair  an  Cuan  Siar,  le  faireachd- 
ainnean  daonda,  's  le  cumhachd  thar  comas  naduir,  thar 
comas  aona  chuid  maith  no  uilc.  Ach  cha  do  shaoil  neach 
riamh  sin  a  thaobh  na  beinne  ;  air  a  h-airdead  's  air  a 
maisead  bu  bheinn  i  iochd  air  n-achd,  's  ged  thachradh  na 
daoine,  cha  charaicheadh  na  cnuic.  Cha  b'  ionnan  's  an 
cuan ;  bha  siubhal-sithe  aice-se  riamh ;  shiubhladh  i 
ceithir  ranna  ruadh  an  domhain  a  dh'  iarraidh  uaigh  a 
cloinne  fein  ;  's  cha  robh  geas  no  ealain  anns  na  Sgoile 
Dubha  nach  robh  da  thrian  as  an  tri  dhiubh  aig  a'  chuan,  's 
an  trian  nach  robh  aice  bha  e  glaiste  an  laimh  dheis  Righ 
nan  Dul.  Cha  b'  urrainn,  mata,  gun  bhuaidh  bhi  aig  na 
beachdan  so  air  an  litreachas,  's  a  leigeadh  fhaicinn  gu  robh, 
ged  mholadh  an  sluagh  Beinn  Dorain  le  luathghair  ard, 
sheinneadh  iad  na  h-orain-mhara  mar  leanabain  a'  cagar- 
saich  anns  an  dorchadas,  's  an  cladh  am  fagus.  Ach  gun 
dol  na's  fhaide  steach  anns  a'  chuis,  is  leoir  a  radh  gu  bheil 
gaol  is  eagal,  beatha  is  bas,  subhachas  is  dubhachas,  a' 
gleusadh  a  cheile  anns  a'  chuantachas  's  a'  cantainn  litreach- 
ais  anns  a  bheil  doimhneachd  is  dian-neart  mar  dhoimhn- 
eachd  's  mar  neart  na  mara  fein.  No  ma  dh'  fhaodar  a 
chur  an  doigh  eile — an  coimeas  ri  litreachas  na  mara,  tha 
mhor-roinn  de  litreachas  na  beinne  mar  fhalluisg  lasrach 
fraoich  an  coimeas  ri  gual  goileach  na  ceardach. 

Nis  bhiodh  na  seann  daoine  bruidhinn  air  '  duatharachd ' 
na  mara,  's  leis  a  sin  bhathas  a'  ciallachadh  gu  robh  nithe 
ceangailte  rithe  nach  robh  idir  ^eangailte  ri  nithe  nadurra 


BUATHAEACHD  NA  MARA  243 

mar  tha  clach  no  uir,  's  gu  robh  buadhan  aice  nach  robh  gu 
coitcheann  eadhon  aig  Siol  Adhaimh. ,  Chunnaic  sinn 
cheana  gu  'm  bu  bheo-chreutair  i  am  beachd  an  t-sluaigh, 
's  tha  iomadh  sgeul  againn  anns  a  bheil  i  'ga  nochdadh  fein 
an  riochd  mnatha,  's  a'  cur  eagal  beath'  is  bais  air  ceatharn- 
aich  na  talmhainn.  Ma's  e  Fionn  MacCumhail,  cha  do 
chuireadh  riamh  ceart  chuig'  e  gus  an  do  thachair  a'  Mhuil- 
eartach  Bhuidhe  air,  's  theagamh  nach  'eileas  fada  cli  'san 
amharus  gu  'm  b'  i  Mhuileartach  an  Cuan  Siar  fein  anns  an 
fheoil.  Co-dhiu,  bha  e  'san  t-seanachas  gu  'n  tainig  latha 
is  bliadhna  de  sheachran-seilge  air  an  Fheinn,  's  fad  na 
h-uine  sin  gu  robh  iad  an  cois  na  mara,  ag  itheadh  bhairneach 
is  fhaochag,  gus  an  robh  clachan  a'  chladaich  cho  lom  ri 
peirceall  tuirc.  Is  e  'n  ceol  bu  bhinne  chuala  an  Fheinn 
riamh  fead  Chaoilte  an  aine  an  la,  a'  toirt  sanais  daibh  gu 
robh  e  mu  dheireadh  's  mu  dhiu  air  lorg  an  fheidh. 

Ciad  soraidh  leis  iia  faochagan, 

Lamh  sgaoilte  leis  na  bairnich, 

Chualas  fead  chaol  chruinn  chruaidh  Chaoilte 

Air  taobh  tuath  Loinneachain. 

Tha  e  nadurra  gu  leoir,  mata,  gu  'm  biodh  an  Fheinn,  's 
iad  a'  cothachadh  ris  a'  chuan,  'ga  meas  mar  namhaid ;  is 
ni  sam  bith  a  ta  'na  namhaid  tha  faireachdainnean  aige  ;  is 
ni  aig  a  bheil  faireachdainnean  feadh  an  latha  tha  fuil  is 
feoil  air  'nuair  thig  an  oidhche — co-dhiu,  tha  comas  maith  is 
uilc  aige.  Theagamh  mata  nach  'eil  e  tuaitheal  idir  a  bhi 
smaointinn  gu  'm  b'  i  Mhuileartach  no  Mhuireartach 
Bhuidhe  an  Cuan  Siar  fein  anns  an  fheoil.  'S  gu  cinnteach 
cha  'n  fhacas  riamh  fo  ghrein  no  fo  ghealaich  cailleach  cho 
oillteil  's  cho  ceannsgalach  rithe. 

Bha  h-aodann  dubh-ghorm  air  dreach  a'ghuail, 
'S  a  deud  enapadach  cnamh-ruadh. 

Bha  aon  suil  ghlumach  'na  ceann 

Bu  luaithe  na  rionnag  gheamhraidh, 

Craobh  mhineach  chas  air  a  ceann 

Mar  choill  sgrkbach  de  'n  t-seana  chritheann. 


244  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Cha  'n  iongantach  idir  ged  dh'  fheuch  Fionn  r'a  breugnach- 
adh  air  f  albh  le  cumhacha  sithe. 

Bhoireadh  Mac  Cumhail  sid  di  gun  diombadh, 
Deich  ciad  chon  air  choimhlion  eille — 
Gabh  an  cumha  is  an  c6rr, 
Deich  ciad  ubhlan  dearg  6ir. 

Ach  an  e  gu  'n  gabhadh  ise  ceannach  no  breugnachadh  is 
Ian  cruinne  de  dh'  or  's  de  dh'  airgiod  aice  an  aigeal  a' 
chuain  ? 

Buaidh  na  h-Eireann  ged  gheabhainn  uile 
Le  h-6r,  le  h-airgiod,  le  h-ionmhas, 
B'fhearr  learn  air  bord  air  mo  luing 
Ceann  Oscair  is  Dhiarmaid  is  Choirill. 

'S  cha  robh  tarruing  lamh  no  seasamh  chas  aig  na  Fianna  fo 
fhraoch  na  cailliche  gus  an  do  thachair  i  fein  agus  Fionn  air 
a  cheile. 

Bha  i  'gam  frithealadb  mu  seach 

Mar  a  ruitheas  lann  tro'  lasair, 

Gus  an  do  thachair  Mac  Cumhail  an  aigh 

'S  a'  Mhuileartach  lamh  ri  lamh. 

'S  a  reir  an  sgeoil  a  fhuair  Iain  Og  He  ann  an  Uibhist,  ged 
bha  chailleach  t^eun  bu  treise  agh  Fhinn, 

'S  bha  taobh  air  a  tholladh  la  guin, 
Bha  braon  d'  a  f uil  air  an  fhraoch, 
Mharbhadh  a'  Mhuileartach  leis  an  righ, 
Ma  mharbhadh,  cha  b'  e  marbhadh  min. 

Ach  chuala  sinn  car  eile  'ga  chur  'san  sgeul — gu  robh  feoil  na 
cailliche  mar  uisge  nan  tonn,  a'  tathadh  ri  cheile  an  deigh 
gach  gearraidh. 

'S  co-ionnan  a  bhi  gearradh  stuadh        v 
'S  a  bhi  gearradh  feoil  na  Fuath, 
Mar  a  th^thas  braon  ri  braon 
Thkthadh  feoil  ri  feoil  'na  taobh. 

Ach  cha  ruig  sinn  leas  dol  gu  Iain  Og  He  no  gu  Uibhist  a 
dh'  fhaotainn  deireadh  an  sgeoil — tha  e  'ga  aithris  fein  a 


DUATHARACHD  NA  MAEA  245 

latha  's  a  dh'  oidhche.  Cha  mhaireann  Fionn  no  Oisean, 
ach  tha  'n  Cuan  Siar  a  sid  fhathast,  a'  traghadh  's  a'  lionadh, 
ma  chaill  no  nach  do  chaill  a'  Mhuileartach  a  ceann. 

Ach  tha  aon  ni  ann  as  fheudar  aideachadh  a  thaobh  a' 
chuain,  gu  bheil  i  air  fas  leasg  'na  sean-aois,  's  nach  trie  a 
chithear  i  nis  an  taobh  a  muigh  d'a  criochan  fein.  'S  tha 
sgeul  air  sin  cuideachd.  '  0  chionn  linntibh  fada  fichead,' 
arsa  sgeulaiche  Eigeach,  '  bha  daoine  mar  na  faoileagan 
's  cha  robh  bathadh  orra,  's  o  Thraigh  Bain  Mhuideart  gu 
dol  fodha  na  greine — 's  a  Thi  Mhoir,  's  fhada  sin  air  falbh  ! — 
cha'n  fhaighteadh  gille-turuis  do  'n  chuan  an  geodha  no  'n 
doimhne  ;  's  ma  bha  gnothach  aig  mo  ghaladhad  air  tir, 
rud  is  minic  a  bha,  cha  robh  air  ach  gu  feumadh  i  fhein  dol 
air  a  chionn.  Ach  an  diugh  tha  'n  t-aigeal  breac  le  suinn 
na  cruinne,  is  b'  olc  an  airidh  mur  faigheadh  an  cuan 
gillean-turuis  'nam  measg.'  'S  a  reir  an  sgeoil,  fhuair  ise 
sin,  gillean-turuis  (no  mar  theirteadh  riutha,  leannana-cuain) 
cho  sgairteil  's  a  shuidh  riamh  air  tobhtaidh  no  chuir 
raimh  tro'  bhacaibh ;  's  cha'n  'eil  geodha  no  caladh  an  eilean 
no  'n  oirthir  anns  nach  facas  iad  uair  no  uair-eigin  a'  toirt 
gu  buil  runta  na  mara.  '  'Nuair  bha  mi  am  ghlas-ghille,' 
arsa  fear  de  shliochd-nan-ron  an  IJibhint  c^  TjjMI^'^  *  fhuair 
sinn  latha  bha  sid  corp  fir  'san  tiurr-flieamann,  's  o  nach  b' 
fhios  duinn  co  e  no  co  as  da,  bha  sinn  dol  'ga  thiodhlacadh 
an  oir  a'  chladaich,  los  nach  biodh  fad  aig  a'  chuan  dol  'ga 
iarraidh,  na'n  iarradh  i  e.  Ach  'nuair  bha  sinn  'ga  thogail, 
mhothaich  sinn  gu  robh  inean  loma  ban-dearg  air,  's 
thuirt  sinn  ri  gach  a  cheile  gu'm  b'  ann  de  na  h-urracha 
mora  esan  co-dhiu,  's  gu  'n  cuireamaid  fo  'n  uir  e  gu 
h-eireachdail,  mar  bu  dual,  comhla  ri  Criosdaidhean  eile  an 
TeampuU  na  Trianaid — rud  a  rinn.  Am  beul  na  h-oidhche, 
chunnacas  bata  tighinn  tro'  na  caoil,  gun  bhreid  aodaich 
rithe,  ged  bha  soirbheas  aice  nach  iarrainn-se  co-dhiu  na 
b'  fhearr — ach  lorn  ruisgte  mar  bha,  is  i  shiubhladh !  Am 
prioba  na  sula  bha  a  taobh  ri  laimrig,  leum  seisear  ghillean 
aisde,  gabhar  suas  gu  Teampnll  na  Trianaid,  's  aig  Ni 
Maith  tha  fios  de  bh'  aca  air  an  guaillibh  'san  tilleadh. 


246  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Och  !   och  !   bheir  an  cuan  a  cuid  fein  a  mach — is  mairg  a 
dhosanaicheadh  rithe  !  ' 

Bu  nos  riamh  do  luchd-tire  a  bhi  caoidh  cor  nan  leannan- 
cuain,  's  a  bhi  smaointinn  nach  biodh  a'  chuis  idir  cho  goirt 
na'n  d'fhuair  iad  bas  a'  chinn-adhairt,  is  mar  ris  cadal- 
daimh  fo  fhoid  na  tunga. 

Righ  !  nach  robh  thu  'n  ad  chadal 
Ann  an  Clachan  na  Traghad, 
Ann  an  Eaglais  na  Trianaid 
Far  an  lionmhor  do  chairdean, 
'S  gu'm  biodh  deoir  mo  dhi  shula 
Mar  an  druchd  glasadh  t'  fh^ile. 

Ach  air  theothad  nan  deur,  cha  d'  fhuair  's  cha'n  fhaigh 
bron-mara  furtachd. 

'S  tha  luchd  mo  ghaoil  'nan  truaghain, 
An  gninnd  a'  chuain  gun  charachadh, 
'Gan  reubadh  leis  na  stuadhan, 
'S  'gam  bualadh  ris  na  stallachan. 

Mu  choinneamh  sin,  is  fheudar  a  radh,  ged  is  iomadh 
leannan-cuain  a  thug  sgriob  air  ais  do  Thir-nam-l?eo,  nach 
cualas  fear  diubh  riamh  a'  diomoladh  Tire-fo-thuinn. 
'  Is  fuar  do  leaba  nochd,  fhir  mo  ghaoil,'  arsa  bantrach  ri 
taibhs  a  fir,  's  e  air  tachairt  rithe  oidhche  'sa  chladach. 
'  Cha'n  fhuar  's  cha  theth,'  ars'  esan,  '  ach  direach  mar  dh' 
iarrainn,  na'm  faigheadh  na  dh'  iarradh.'  '  Mur  fuar,  a 
ghaoil,'  ars'  ise,  'is  aonaranach  co-dhiu.'  "Se  tha  sin 
naigheachd,'  ars'  esan — '  air  an  aon  sgeir  rium  tha  sar- 
ghaisgich  Lochlainn,  baird  na  h-  Eireann,  sgeulaichean  na 
h-Albann,  's  an  rud  nach  cuala  iadsan  no  mise  riamh,  is 
eol  do'n  ron  's  do'n  eala  sin.'  '  Eudail  mo  chridhe,'  ars'  ise, 
'  nach  aimideach  sinne  a'  gul  's  a'  caoidh  nam  fear,  is 
iadsan  cho  seanachasail  sona  'san  Tir-fo-thuinn !  '  'Is 
fhior  dhuit  sin,  a  ghraidhein,'  ars'  esan,  's  e  dol  as  an 
t-sealladh. 

Tha  leannan-cuain  eile  tath^^ich  Caolas  Odair  (no 
Odrum),  eadar  Heisgeir  agus  an  da  Haisgeir,  taobh  siar 


DUATHARACHD  NA  MAEA  247 

Uibhist,  's  a  reir  a  sgeoil-san  ^  is  aite  bochd  Tir-nam-beo 
seach  Tir-fo-thuinn. 

Ann  an  Caolas  Od-odrum, 

Far  an  caidleadh  an  ron, 

'S  far  nach  cluinnteadh  guth  duine, 

Ach  fuaim  tuinne  's  glog  geoidh. 

Mar  mhuime  'g  altrum  a  paisdean, 
'S  i  'gan  taladh  gu  ciuin, 
Gu  bheil  tulgadh  nan  cuantan 
'Gar  sior-luasgadh  'nar  suain. 

Tha  'n  ron  rioghail  a'  gusgal 

'S  an  eala  guileag  r'a  thaobh, 

'S  a'  mhaighdeann-mhara  's  i  bruadar 

Anns  an  uaigneas  air  laoch. 

Tha  na  luingis  a'  seoladh 
Le  'n  cuid  oigear  tro  'n  chaol, 
An  t6ir  air  gaisge  's  air  gabhadh, 
Air  ceol-gaire  's  air  gaol. 

'S  theid  na  luingis  a  bhathadh, 
'S  theid  na  h-armainn  a  dhith, 
'S  cha  luidh  suain  air  an  ainnir, 
Gun  a  leannan,  'sa  chill. 

Och  !  an  duthaich  an  eorna 
Cha  sguir  comhrag  no  eug, 
'S  gu'm  bi  d6ruinn  chloinn-daoine 
Leis  an  aois  dol  am  meud. 

Ach  bidh  mise  's  mo  leannan 
Chaoidh  'nar  flaitheas  fo  thuinn, 
'S  cha  ruig  airsneal  no  aois  oirnn 
Gus  an  saorar  na  suinn. 

Is  e  da  thrian  na  dachaidh  a  bhi  toilichte  leatha,  's  a 
reir  coslais  tha  na  leannana-cuain  lan-riaraichte  an  da 
chuid  le  'n  tuineadh  's  le  'm  muime.  Ach  ge  taitneach 
creideasach  an  sgeul,  is  duilich  a  chlaradh  air  na  mnathaibh — 
co-dhiu  orra-san  a  chaill  an  ulaidh  sin  a  fhuair  an  cuan. 
Cha  b'  ionmhainn  riamh  le  mathair  muime,  's  tha  i  gun 
bhreith  fhathast  an  te  theireadh  o  iochdar  a  cridhe  :  '  is  e 
mo  dhurachd  gu'm  bi  mo  chuid  leanaban  na's  sona  le  'm 

1  Faodar  a  radh  gu  'n  d'  fhuaradh  an  t-oran-sa  'na  bhlaighean,  's  gu  'n  deachaidh 
seorsa  de  charadh  a  dheanamh  air — b'  fhiach  na  blaighean  sin. 


248  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

muime,  ma  bhios  i  ann,  na  bha  iad  leamsa.'  'S  cha'n  ailis 
idir  e  air  gaol  nam  ban  ma  chuir  deagh  bhanaltrumas  a' 
chuain  teothad  'nan  deoir  is  goirtead  'nan  cridhe  nach 
cuireadli  a  h-an-iochd  gu  brath.  Tha  'n  uaigh  gionach  gu 
leoir,  ach  cha  'n  iarr  's  cha  'n  fhaigh  i  ach  fuil  is  feoil  is 
cnaimh;  iarraidh  is  gheibh  an  cuan  sin  's  an  t-iomlan,  an 
duine  eadar  anam  is  chorp.  Faodaidh  e  bhith  *  Gu  'm  bi 
duil  ri  beul  cuain  ged  nach  bi  ri  beul  uaigh,'  ach  'nuair 
tha  'n  duil  marbh,  cha  'n  'eil  anns  a'  bhron  a  their, '  Thug  an 
uaigh  mo  mhac  dhiom,'  ach  neoini  an  coimeas  ris  a'  bhron  sin 
a  dh'  fhaodas  a  radh, '  Thug  an  cuan  diom  gaol  mo  mhic' 
Ach  ge  mor  fuath  nam  ban  do  'n  Tir-fo-thuinn,  is  motha 
na  sin  an  gradh  do  na  fir  nach  maireann,  's  tha  cuid  diubh 
co-dhiu  a  thuinicheadh  gu  toileach  anns  a'  chuan  air  sgath 
luchd  an  gaoil. 

Beul  a'  mhire  's  a'  cheol-g^ire, 

'S  truagh  nach  mise  bha  ceart  lamh  riut, 

An  druim  a'  chuain  no  'n  iomall  traghad, 

Ge  b'  e  kit  am  fag  an  Ian  thu ; 

Taobh  ri  taobh,  a  ghaoil,  mar  b'  abhaist, 

Taobh  ri  taobh,  gun  duil  ri  t'  fhagail, 

Sior  dhol  suain,  's  ar  manran  samhach — 

Och,  mo  leon  !  cha  chluinn  mo  ghradh  mi, 

'S  bathadh  stuadh  air  m'  osna  chraitich. 

Ach  bha  iad  ann  a  bha  na  bu  rathala  na  i  so,  's  a  fhuair 
na  dh'  iarr.  Tha  mu  chiad  gu  leth  bliadhna  ann  a  nis  o'n 
sheol  Ailean  Donn  a  mach  a  Steornabhaigh  los  ceangal 
posaidh  a  chur  air  fhein  's  air  ailleagan  nan  eilean,  nighean 
Fir  Scalpaidh  's  na  h-Earradh  ;  ach  eadar  togail  is  leagail 
siuil  fhuair  an  rosad-mhara  greim  air,  's  'nuair  bu  choir  dha, 
na  'n  robh  choir  ann,  bhi  cur  na  f  ainne  air  meur  na  suirghich, 
's  ann  bha  e  'na  luidhe  fo  chobhar  nan  stuadh.  'S  ma  chuir 
so  nighean  Fir  Scalpaidh  gu  bron,  chuir  e  a  bron  gu  seinn,  's 
gus  an  latha  'n  diugh  tha  'm  bantrachas-cuain  a'  gul  's  ag 
iargain  'na  ceol. 

M'  achanaich-sa,  Righ  na  Cathrach, 

Gun  mi  dhol  an  uir  no  'n  anart, 

An  talamh-toU  no  'n  aite-falaich, 

Ach  'sa'  bhad  an  deach  thu,  Ailein — 
Ailein  Duinn,  6  hi,  shiubhlainn  leat. 


DUATHARACHD  NA  MAHA  249 

Is  shiubhail  i  leis.  'Nuair  thainig  am  a  fuasglaidh,  b'  e 
toil  a  cairdean  a  h-aiseag  thar  a'  chaolas  gu  aite-taimh  a 
h-aithrichean ;  ach  ged  thug  iad  iomadh  oidhirp  air  a'  cheann- 
uidhe  sin  a  thoirt  a  mach,  bha'n  Dan  's  an  doineann  's 
an  cuan  'nan  aghaidh,  's  an  deireadh  sgeoil  choilion  an 
cathadhmara  iarrtus  na  te  '  anns  a'  bhad  an  deach  thu, 
Ailein.' 

Sin  mar  a  bha  's  a  tha — gach  ni  thun  a'  chuain,  's  tha 
eachdraidh  nan  Eilean  sgriobhta. 

Tha  iomadh  ni  duatharach  'san  doimhne  a  thuilleadh 
air  na  leannana-cuain.  Theireadh  na  seann  daoine  nach 
robh  '  beo  air  luim  gun  a  shamhailt  bhi  fo  thuinn,'  crodh- 
mara,  f  aol-mhara,  cat-mara,  nathair-mhara  iochd  air  n-achd. 
Ach  tha  tri  ann  a  tha  de  sgeul  's  de  dhuatharachd  a'  chuain 
OS  cionn  chaich — an  ron  's  an  eala  's  a'  mhaighdeann-mhara. 
Cha  b'  ann  de  fhior  naisinn  na  mara  a  h-aon  diubh,  ge  fad' 
an  ceilidh  fo  thuinn.  Na  'n  robh  choir  air  a  cumail,  bu 
righrean  air  Lochlainn  na  roin  an  diugh  ;  ach  'nan  oige  bha 
iad  cho  eireachdail  am  pearsa  's  cho  sgairteil  an  gniomh 
's  gu'n  do  ghabh  am  muime  grain  na  criche  orra,  's  cha 
bhiodh  beo  aice  gus  an  toireadh  i  leagadh  cinn  is  cridhe 
dhaibh.  Thug  i  seachd  laithean  is  seachd  bliadhna  ag  ionn- 
sachadh  na  sgoile  duibhe,  's  'nuair  fhuair  i  na  dh'  fhoghnadh 
(is  innleachd  mnatha  comhla  ris  !)  cuirear  a  cuid  dalta  fo 
gheasaibh  's  fo  chroisibh  '  nach  b'  iasg  's  nach  b'  ainmhidh 
gu  brath,  's  gu  'm  biodh  am  miann-mara  gu  tir  's  am  miann- 
tire  gu  muir  fhad  's  a  bhuaileadh  tonn  air  traigh.'  Gus  an 
latha  'n  diugh  mata,  tha  '  Clann  Righ  Lochlainn  fo  gheas- 
aibh '  a'  gusgal  an  cuid  ciuil  air  na  sgeirean,  a'  sior-ghearan 
mar  a  tha,  's  a'  sior-iargain  mar  a  bha — 's  mar  theireadh  na 
seann  daoine,  '  Nach  aithnicheadh  tu  air  an  da  shuil  's  air 
an  cluais-chiuil  gu  bheil  fuil  nan  righrean  anns  gach  feith.' 
'S  a  reir  an  sgeoil  bha  e  anns  na  geasaibh  cuideachd  gu'm 
biodh  aca  ri  dol  'nan  cruth  nadurra  fein  tri  uairean  'sa 
bhliadhna,  ri  laine  gealaich,  los  gu'm  biodh  call  'ga  urachadh 
's  bron  'ga  mheudachadh  dhaibh  le  bhi  faicinn  an  dilse  fo 
cheannas  nan  coimheach.     'S  theirteadh  na'm  faiceadh  tu 


250  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

h-aon  diubh  aims  a'  cheart  ^m  sin,  gu'n  toireadh  tu  gaol 
do  chridhe  dhise  no  dhasan,  's  na'm  biodh  bainnsean  idir 
air  t'aire,  gur  h-e  banais  a  bhiodh  ann.  Tha  sliochd 
nam  posadh  sin  anns  na  h-Eileanan  fhathast ;  b'ann 
diubh  Clann  'ic  Codrum,  's  theirteadh  gu'm  b'ann  diubh 
cuideachd  gach  neach  a  b'  fhearr  guth-cinn  no  cleibh  na 
cheile. 

Is  gann  gu  ruigear  leas  a  radh  nach  'eil  e  rathail  ron  a 
mharbhadh,  's  nach  robh  buil  no  blath  riamh  air  sealgair 
a  rinn  a  leithid.     Faodaidh  bard  na  beinne  bhi  seinn : 

Mharbhainn  duit  geoidh  is  roin  is  eala, 
'S  na  h-eoin  air  bharra  nan  geug ; 

Ach  na'm  b'  Eileanach  e,  bhiodh  e  na  bu  chneasda,  co- 
dhiu,  chuirteadh  cneasdachd  air  'aindeoin,  mar  is  minic  a 
thachair.  Latha  bha  fir  Chanaidh  air  ti  seilge  an  Eilean-nan- 
ron,  f aicear  cuilean  anns  an  fheamainn  is  e  dur-amharc  orra 
le  dha  shuil  mhora  bhlatha,  mar  gu'm  biodh  e  dol  a  radh  : 
*  Is  ann  de  shliochd  nan  righrean  mise,  's  na  marbhaibh  an 
cuilean.'  Ach  mharbhadh  an  cuilean — le  fear  bu  luaithe 
lamh  's  bu  chruaidhe  cridhe  na  cheile — 's  ma  mharbhadh, 
chaidh  gaoth  is  fairge  gu  boile,  's  bha  na  fir  an  sin  gun 
seasamh  chas  aca,  's  iad  mar  na  bairnich  a'  greimeachadh  ris 
na  creagan.  Arsa  fear  a'  chridhe  chruaidh,  eadar  da  sgal 
gaoithe,  *  Cha  'n  ann  gun  aobhar  a  thainig  so,  fheara — tha 
d^  phrostanach  'nar  cuideachd — is  fheudar  gu  bheil  diomb 
air  Moire  's  air  a  Mac'  Air  sail  an  fhacail  ghrad-rugadh  air 
an  dithis  fhear,  's  cha  bhiodh  air  ach  gu  feumadh  iad  an 
dara  cuid  a  thoirt  mar  cheannach  do'n  chuan,  am  beatha 
no  an  creideamh.  Ach  is  e  gach  ni  fo  'n  ghrein  a  dheanadh  an 
d^  shaobhaire  ach  dealachadh  ri  'm  beatha,  's  b'  e  deireadh 
na  cuise  gu  'n  deachaidh  am  baisteadh  le  ch6ile,  an  lodan 
saile,  a  steach  do  'n  Eaglais  Naoimh  Chaitligich.  Ach  cha 
do  sheimhich  sin  gaoth  no  fairge,  's  an  treas  latha  thuirt 
am  fear  bu  shine  's  bu  ghlice  anns  a'  chuideachd :  '  'Se 
so  mo  bheachd  fhein,  fheara,  nach  ann  de  'n  chrabhadh 
mort  no  marbhadh,  's  na  robh  an  cuilean-roin  beo  fhathast, 


DUATHARACHD  NA  MAEA  251 

dh'  fhaoidte  gu  robh  sinne  na  bu  rathala  na  tha  sinn.' 
Bhoidich  an  sin  gach  fear  diubh,  na  'm  faigheadh  e  bheatha 
leis  an  trath-sa,  natjh  marbhadh  's  nach  mabadh  e  ron  gu 
brath  tuilleadh.  An  oidhche  sin  bha  na  fir  'nan  tighean 
fein  an  Canaidh. 

Ma  tha  duatharachd  an  eachdraidh  an  roin,  tha  duathar- 
achd  is  corr  an  eachdraidh  na  h-eala.  Anns  na  sgeulachdan 
theirear  '  nighean  an  da  luan  deug '  rithe,  's  bhiodh  na  seann 
daoine  cur  beachd  air  so  :  'nuair  bhiodh  fas  air  a'  ghealaich 
gu'  m  biodh  bainead  air  an  eala,  's  'nuair  bhiodh  ra-dorcha 
air  a'  ghealaich  gu  'm  biodh  dath-dorcha  air  an  eala.  Ach 
biodh  sin  mar  a  bhitheas,  is  nighean  righinne  co-dhiu  an 
eala.  Anns  na  laithean  duatharach,  a  reir  an  sgeoil,  bha 
da  righinn  ann  a  bha  cho  alainn  's  nach  b'  urrainnear  a 
radh  co  bu  ghrainne-mullaich  dhiubh,  's  an  te  eile  lathair  ; 
's  b'  e  deireadh  na  ciiise  gu  'n  do  chuir  an  dara  te  an  te  eile 
fo  gheasaibh,  '  i  shiubhal  gu  brath  o  aird  gu  h-aird  an 
riochd  coin,  sgiamhach  air  muir,  clibeach  air  tir,  binn- 
ghuthach  fo  ghealaich,  balbh  tosdach  fo  ghrein ' — 's  tha  'n 
eala  fo  na  geasaibh  sin  fhathast.  Theagamh  gu  bheil 
mineachadh  an  sgeoil  r'  a  fhaotainn  anns  an  t-sean-fhacal, 
'  Farmad  na  greine  ris  a'  ghealaich.'  Co-dhiii,  tha  e  'san 
t-seanachas,  'nuair  a  shiolaidh  an  Dile-Ruadh  gu  robh 
ghealach  Ian,  's  gu  robh  i  cho  gile  an  oidhche  sin  's  gu 
faiceadh  duine  calg  na  muice-creige  'na  chois,  na  'm. biodh 
calg  innte.  Chuir  so  a'  ghrian,  's  i  'na  cruban  anns  a'  chuan, 
gu  boile  's  gu  feirg.  '  Eiridh  mi,'  ars'  ise,  '  ge  fada  mu's 
blais  an  t-eun  an  t-uisge,  's  cuiridh  mi  grad-smal  air  an  re  's 
air  na  reultaibh  uile.'  Rinn  i  sin,  's  ma  rinn,  chaill  a' 
ghealach  trian  d'a  solus,  's  tha  e  g'a  dith  chuige  so.  Theag- 
amh mata  gur  h-e  an  trian  sin  a  ta  againn  an  riochd  na 
h-eala,  nighean  an  da  luan  deug,  's  i  binn-ghuthach  fo 
ghealaich  ach  balbh  tosdach  fo  ghrein. 

Tha  iomadh  sgeul  air  an  eala  anns  na  h-Eileanan,  's  iad 
uile  'g  aithris  gu  bheil  i  tiamhaidh  'na  beatha  is  aonaranach 
'na bas,  's  gur  h-e  a  rogha-ciuil  a  bhi  taladh  nan  leannan-cuain 
air  na  sgeirean.     Co  nach  cual'  iomradh  air  an  eala  leointe 


252  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

shnamh  a  Eirinn  gu  h-I,  's  a  fhuair  fasgadh  is  leigheas  an 

sin  ? 

Latha  chaidh  Calum-cille  mach 
Anns  a'  mhadainn  mhoich, 
Faicear  an  eala,  guile  !  guile ! 
An  eala  bhan  air  an  t-snamh 
'S  guileag  bh^is  aic', 
Guile !  guile ! 

An  eala  bhan  's  i  leointe  leointe, 
An  eala  bhan  's  i  breoite  breoite, 
Guile  !  guile !  's  an  d^  shealladh  oirr', 
Guile  !  guile  !  's  an  di  mhanadh  oirr', 

Beath'  is  b^s, 

Guile !  guile ! 

Cia  as  do  shnamh,  eala  bhan, 

Arsa  Calum-cille  mo  ghraidh — 

A  h-Eirinn  mo  shnamh,  guile  !  guile ! 

0  'n  Fheinne  mo  chradh,  guile  !  guile  ! 

Guin  a'  bhkis. 

Guile !  guile ! 

Eala  bhan,  eala  na  h-Eireann, 
Is  cobhartach  mise  do'n  eigneach, 
Suil  bhMh  Chriosd  air  do  chradh, 
Ortha  na  scire  's  an  t-sior-ghraidh 

'Gad  dheanamh  slan. 

Guile  !  guile ! 

Eala  bhan  na  h-Eireann,  guile !  guile  ! 
Cha  bhi  beud  ort,  guile  !  guile ! 
A  bhaintighearna  na  linne,  guile  !  guile  ! 
A  bhaintighearna  na  tuinne,  guile !  guile ! 

Do  los'  a'  ghloir, 

Guile !  guile  ! 

Eadar-dha-sgeul,  nach  fhaodadh  e  bhith  gu  bheil  snamh 
is  leon  is  leigheas  Eala  na  h-Eireann  a'  riochdachadh 
uidhearachd  ar  sluaigh  o  dhoillearachd  na  Feinne  gu  soillear- 
achd  an  t-Soisgeil  ?  B'  fhurasda  leudachadh  air  a'  chuis, 
ach  cha  bhuin  e  do  ar  seanachas  'san  am. 

Nis  tha  fios  againn  eo  as  a  thainig  an  ron  's  an  eala,  ach 
CO  as  idir  a  thainig  a'  mhaighdeann-mhara  ?     Cha  dhuilich 


DUATHARACHD  NA  MAEA 


253 


jin  innseadh  mata.  Bha  maighdeann  ann  uair  's  rachar  latha 
le  na  laithean  gu  fuaran  a  dh'  61  dibhe.  Ars'  ise,  's  i  'ga 
faicinn  fein  anns  an  fhior-uisge,  '  Cha'n  'eil  fhios  a  bheil 
te  eile  an  Albainn  cho  briagha  riumsa  ?  '  '  Nach  aimideach 
thusa,  ghraidh  nam  ban,'  ars'  a  muime,  's  i  air  tighinn  gu 
failidh  air  a  culaibh,  '  ge  mor  Alba,  is  motha  'n  saoghal.' 
'  Ma's  motha,  cha  'n  fhearr,'  ars'  a'  mhaighdeann,  '  's  co- 
dhiu,  chunnaic  mise  sin,  gach  ridir  as  fhearr  na  cheile  a 
ceithir  ranna  ruadh  an  domhain,  's  bhoidich  is  bhriathraich 
gach  fear  diubh  nach  f ac'  iad  mo  leithid  aon  chuid  rompa  no 
as  an  deigh.'  '  Faodaidh  sin  a  bhith,'  ars'  a  muime,  '  ach 
ge  mor  an  domhan,  is  beag  e  seach  an  fhairge,  agus  is 
iomadh  fios-freagairt  a  ta  'n  cleith  'na  doimhne,'  An 
oidhche  sin  fhein  chaidh  a'  mhaighdeann  gu  dubh-sgoilear 
ainmeil,  's  ars'  ise,  '  Fhir  na  sgoile  duibhe,  thoir  dhomh  eolas 
na  mara.'  '  Ni  mi  iasg  dhiot,'  ars'  esan.  '  Cha'n  fhoghainn 
e,'  ars'  ise,  '  dh'  fheumainn  suil  mnatha  'nam  cheann,  los  mi 
dh'  fhaicinn  's  a  dh'  aithneachadh  maise  mo  sheorsa.' 
'  Cuiridh  mi,'  ars'  esan, '  ceann  mnatha  air  an  iasg.'  '  Cha'n 
fhoghainn  e,'  ars'  ise,  '  dh'  fheumainn  cridhe  mnatha  'nam 
chliabh,  los  gaol  a  thabhairt  's  a  ghabhail,  na'm  biodh 
luehd-gaoil  ann.'  '  Miann  do  chridhe  dhuit,'  ars'  esan — 's 
gabhar  le  cheile  thun  a'  chuain.  Riamh  o  'n  oidhche  sin 
chitear  baintighearna  6r-bhuidh,  le  earball  eisg,  a'  snamh 
nan  tonn  's  a'  sior-iarraidh  an  ni  sin  nach  gabh  faotainn,  te 
as  aille  na  i  fein.  'S  ma  's  fior  am  fathann,  ged  fhuair  i 
eolas  na  mara,  cha  d'  fhuair  i  riamh  sonas  'na  luib,  's  'nuair 
bheir  i  gaol,  is  ann  do  fhuil  bhlath,  's  cha  'n  ann  idir  do  fhuil 
fhuair. 

Tha  duatharachd  na  mara  cho  farsaing  's  cho  domhain 
rithe  fein,  's  cha  bhiodh  an  sgeul  iomlan  gun  iomradh  a 
thoirt  air  na  fearra-longa,^  mar  theirteadh  riutha,  's  air  na 
h-Eileana-sgeoil.  Is  maith  an  long  a  bheir  a  mach  an  caladh 
as  an  d'  fhalbh  i,  ach  fada  roimh  mhithich  bhiodh  suil  nam 
ban  a'  sireadh  a'  chuain,  's  a'  faotainn  sgeoil  uaipe  cuideachd 
air  cor  nam  fear.     Na'm  faicteadh  fearra-long  is  solus  dearg 

»  Feall-long? 


254  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

oirre,  bu  mhanadh  air  a'  bheo  e  ;  na'm  faicteadh  te  is  solus 
geal  oirre,  bu  mhanadh  air  a'  mharbh  e. 

Chunnaic  mi  fearra-long  a  raoir, 
Solus  oillt  is  6ig  'na  crann, 
'S  thuig  mi  gu  robh  m'  aona  mhac  og 
Fuar  fo  spoig  a'  chuain  ud  thall. 

'S  ma  dh'  fhaodar  earbsa  chur  an  suilean  an  t-sluaigh,  is 
iomadh  uair  a  thug  na  bantracha-cuain  fein  sgriob  anns  an 
fhearra-luing,  's  a  chiteadh  am  beul  na  h-oidhche  : 

Fearra-long  mhor  a  steach  an  caolas, 
Bean  'na  toiseach  a'  sior-chaoineadh, 
Bean  'na  deireadh  a'  sior-ghlaodhaich, 
Bean  air  tobhtaidh  a'  sior-ghaoladh. 

Nach  'eil  ni-eigin  taitneach  anns  an  smuain  gur  h-i  an  long 
a  ta  giulan  fios-bais  chum  nam  ban  a  ta  cuideachd  'gan 
aiseag  troimh  'n  chaolas  a  sheinn  an  tuiridh  os  cionn  a' 
mhairbh  ?  Ach  cha'n  aobhar  ioghnaidh  idir  e — cha  bu 
mhotha  riamh  gairge  na  mara  na  a  teo-chridheachd.  'S  ma 
tha  i  teo-chridheach,  an  co-lorg  sin  tha  i  cruaidh  ceart. 
Cha  b'ann  aon  uair  no  da  uair,  anns  na  laithean  duatharach, 
a  chaisg  i  eucoir  nan  Gall,  's  a  dh'  fhogair  i  'n  ciontach  d'on 
aite  sin  a  bha  freagarrach  do  dhroch  ghiulan.  '  B'  fhurasd 
aithneachadh  air  an  fhearra-luing,'  theireadh  na  seann 
daoine,  '  na'm  b'  e  sid  a  ceann-gnothaich — bhiodh  i  daonnan 
air  theinidh.'  Cha'n  'eil  cho  ro-fhada  o'n  chunnacas  i  air  a' 
cheart  ghnothach  's  anns  a'  cheart  bheairt  sin,  agus  so  an 
sgeul  mar  fhuaradh  i  o  fhear  de  'n  dithis  a  chunnaic  : 

Bha  sinn  direach  a'  greimeachadh  air  fasgadh  an  fhear- 
ainn,  'nuair  chunnaic  sinn  neul  boillsgeach,  mar  gu  'm  b'  ann 
OS  cionn  Chaol  Muile.  Arsa  mo  ghoistidh  rium  f hein, '  Cuiridh 
mise  mo  chluas  air  a'  gheall  gur  h-e  th'  ann  Tobar  -Mhoire  ris 
na  speuran,  's  gu  dearbh  cha  b'  iongantach  ged  bhitheadh, 
's  na  soluis  aca  muigh  air  na  sr^idean  fein.'  Ach  'san  fhacal 
thainig  ise — oir  's  i  fhein  a  bh'ann — timchioll  Rudh'  Airdna- 
murchann,  's  cuirear  a  ceann  air  Eige — 's  a  Thi  Mhoir,  's  i 
dh'  fhalbhadh  !  'S  bha  sinne  'nar  dithis  's  ar  n-anail  'nar 
n-uchd,  's  ar  cridhe  leum  as  a  chochall,  is  fios  is  cinnt  againn 


DUATHAEACHD  NA  MAEA  255 

Lur  bathadh  sal  gu  loisgeadh  teine.  Ach,  eudail  nam  fear, 
jha  robh  an  uair  air  tighinn — 's  am  prioba  na  sula  bha 
'bheist  seachad  oirnn,  's  i  'na  caora  dearga  o  'toiseach  gu 
'deireadh,  o  'bord-uisge  gu  barr  a  croinn.  Is  Ni  Maith  'gar 
seunadh,  bha  fear  fada  caol  dubh  oirre,  is  fidheall  'na  dhorn, 
's  e  sior-chluich  's  a'  leum  's  a'  lasganaich — agus,  0  Mhoire 
's  a  ghraidh,  b'  uamhasach  fhein  an  raoiceil  a  bha  gu  h-iosal. 
Is  c'ait  an  tug  i  oirre  'na  dheigh  sin  ?  Aig  an  t-Sealbh  tha 
brath — ach  an  sealladh  mu  dheireadh  fhuair  sinne  dhith,  bha 
i  mach  an  Caol  Canach,  's  an  Cuan  Siar  fo  'sroin. 

Cha  lean  sinn  i  na's  fhaide  an  trath-sa,  ach  gu  cinnteach 
is  iomadh  uair  a  b'  fhiach  i  leant ainn,  'nuair  bhiodh  teine 
nan  eucorach  as,  's  a  guala  gile  mar  a'  ghrian,  's  i  deanamh 
airdeachd  gu  Tir  nan  Gg,  no  gus  na  h-Eileana-sgeoil  eile,  an 
t-Eilean  Uaine,  an  t-Eilean  Sorcha,  Innse  Geala  nan 
Ra-soluis,  Eilean  nam  Fear  Fial  Fionn.  Gun  teagamh 
tha  eileanan  eile  ann  nach  'eil  idir  cho  taitneach  riu  sin — 
Eilean  na  Fiacais,  far  an  teid  luchd  nan  teanga  fada ;  Eilean 
na  Duibhre,  far  an  teid  farmad  is  droch  shuil ;  is  Roca- 
barraidh  fo  Thuinn,  taobh  siar  Bharraidh,  far  a  bheil  na 
h-alla-bheistean  mora  a'  sior-dheilbh  uilc  an  aghaidh  a' 
chinne-dhaonna.  Mar  dh'  eirich  do  bhrataich  Shil-Leoid, 
thainig  Rocabarraidh  ris  da  uair  cheana,  's  an  treas  uair 

Nuair  thig  Rocabarraidh  ris, 

Is  dual  gu  'n  teid  an  saoghal  a  sgrios. 

Thathas  ag  radh  gu  bheil  cuid  de  na  h-oUamhan  a'  f  aotainn 
a  nis  lorg  lacha,  no  theagamh  gur  h-e  lorg  geoidh,  thun  nan 
Eilean-sgeoil  sin,  's  a'  toirt  h-Irt  mar  ainm  air  a'  mhor-roinn 
diubh.  Ach  biodh  iad  ceart  no  cearr,  is  diomhain  an  saothair. 
B'  ann  de  'n  chridhe,  's  cha  b'  ann  de  'n  fhradharc,  na 
h-Eileana-sgeoil;  's  ged  bhuailteadh  Tir  nan  Og  am  maireach, 
an  earar  bhiodh  Eilean-sgeoil  eil'  ann  na  b'  fhaide  mach  'sa' 
chuan,  's  cha  tig  an  latha  chi  suil  no  shaltras  cas  tir  ar 
n-ionndrainn. 

Nis  na'n  ceadaicheadh  an  duilleag,  ni  nach  ceadaich,  b' 
fhurasda  shoilleireachadh  mar  tha  beatha  'n  Eileanaich, 
o  bhreith  gu  bhas,  air  a  comhdach,  mar  gu'm  b'eadh,  le 


256  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

duatharachd  na  mara.  Theirteadh  gu'm  biodh  luth  is 
aigneadh  an  duine  a  reir  an  t-siuil-mhara  bh'ann  'nuair  a 
rugadh  e,  's  gu'm  biodh  rath  an  lionaidh  no  rosad  an 
traghaidh  air  fhad  's  bu  bheo  e.  'S  ma  thachair  gu  robh 
a'  ghealach  a  reir  a'  chuain  'san  am,  bha  ceann  cinnt  air  a' 
chuis  an  sin. 

Rugadh  Calum-cille  mo  ghraidh 

Ri  cuan  an  lionaidh, 

Ri  gdalach  an  fh^is, 

'S  b'  e  'n  t-ailleagan  e  fein. 

'S  a  reir  an  sgeoil,  'nuair  rugadh  ludas  bha  cuan  a'  traghadh 
's  gealach  a'  cnamh,  's  a  thaobh  's  gu  robh,  bha  ra-dorcha 
air  a  bheatha-san  riamh.  Theirteadh  cuideachd  gu'n 
d' rugadh  Pilat  ri  marbh-shruth  na  contraigh-^'s  nach  robh 
bhuil  air  ?  Cha  b'  fhios  da  riamh  de'n  taobh  a  ghabhadh  e, 
's  cha  robh  seasmhachd  'na  ghniomh  no  earbsa  ri  chur  'na 
fhacal.  Ach  cha'n  e  aon  cheiHdh  no  da  cheilidh  a  chuireadh 
crioch  air  an  sgeul  sin,  's  a  leigeadh  ris  duinn  mar  tha  ceol- 
gaire  is  crabhadh  an  t-sluaigh,  am  beul-aithris  's  an  gnath  's 
am  beachdan  gu  leir,  air  an  neulachadh  le  duatharachd  na 
mara.  B'  e  'n  ceart  ioghnadh  e  nach  robh  aignidhean  an 
t-sluaigh  air  an  tur-shaobhadh  's  air  gm  crubadh  gu  neoini 
fo  cheannas  na  duatharachd  sin.  Ach  'se  theirteadh  '  gur 
h-ann  air  comhairle  na  gaoithe  tha  'n  cuan,'  's  a  chionn  's 
gu  robhas  a'  creidsinn  an  co-lorg  sin  '  gur  h-ann  air  comhairle 
Righ  nan  Dul  tha  ghaoth,'  bha  ni-eigin  an  inntinn  an 
t-sluaigh  a  bha  cumail  lamhacha^Jaidir  na  mara  o 
thighinngucearrachas-laidir  air  a  taobh-se,  's  gu  traillealachd 
air  an  taobh'-san.  Ach  'na  dheigh  sin  's  d'  a  aindeoin,  is  e 
toiseach  is  deireadh  an  sgeoil  gu'm  b'  ann  's  gur  h-ann  de  'n 
chuan  beatha  'n  Eileanaich,  's  ma  tha  cluas  na  h-oige  fosg- 
ladh,  gu  bheil  cluas  na  h-aoise  dunadh,  ri  a  gair. 

Tha  'n  ceo  's  an  druchd, 
Tha  'n  druchd  's  an  ceo, 
Tha  'n  ceo  's  an  druchd 

An  suil  mo  ghraidh, 

An  suil  mo  ghraidh. 


DKUIDS  AND  MOUND-DWELLEES  257 

A  Thi  dh'  fhosgail  an  t-suil  og, 
Duin  i  'n  nochd  'n  clo  a'  bhais, 
An  cl6  a'  bhais. 

Tha  gkir  a'  chuain, 
A  nuall  's  a  g^ir, 
Tha  gair  a'  chuain 

An  cluais  mo  ghraidh, 

An  cluais  mo  ghraidh. 
A  Thi  bheairtich  an  ur-long, 
Stiuir  i  'n  nochd  thar  tonn  a'  bhais, 
Thar  tonn  a'  bh^is.' 


DEUIDS  AND  MOUND-DWELLERS 

David  MacEitchie 

In  his  interesting  monograph  on  the  Fairy-Faith,  recently 
published/  Mr.  W.  Y.  Evans  Wentz  refers  to  the  theory 
that  the  existence  of  that  faith  is  largely  to  be  accounted 
for  by  the  existence  ui  the  druids.  As  Mr.  Wentz' s  treatise 
formed  the  starting-point  of  a  paper  of  mine  which  appeared 
in  the  October  (1909)  number  of  the  Celtic  Review,^  wherein, 
for  reaso)  .s  of  space,  the  '  Druid  Theory '  was  very  briefly 
noticed,  it  seems  desirable  to  discuss  that  theory  at  some 
length  in  these  pages,  and  to  repeat  in  full  the  synopsis  of 
it  given  by  Mr.  Wentz.     It  is  in  these  words  : — 

'  The  Druid  Theory  to  account  for  fairies  is  less  widespread 
[than  those  denominated  '  Naturalistic  *  and  '  Pygmy  '].  It  is  that 
the  folk-memory  of  the  Di-uids  -ind  their  magical  practices  is  alone 
responsible  for  the  Fairy-Faitli.  The  Hrst  suggestion  of  this  theory 
seems  to  have  been  made  by  Patrick  i^rahani,  in  his  Sketches  Descrip- 
tive of  Picturesque  Scenery  orv^he  Southern  Confines  of  Perthshire, 
published  in  1806.  Altitd  Maury  in  Les  Fees  du  Moyen-Age, 
published  in  ^843  at  Paris ,>-«ippears  to  have  made  liberal  use  of 
Patrick  Graham's  suggestions  in  setting  up  his  theory  that  the  fees 
or  fairy-women  of  the  MidcUe  Ages  are  due  to  a  folk-memory  of 
druidesses.  Maury  seems  to  have  forgotten  that  throughout  pagan 
Britain  and  Ireland,  much  more  important  in  studying  fairies  than^ 
Celtic  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages,  druids  rather  than  druidesses 

1  Rennes,  Imprimerie  Oberthur,  1909.  2  Up,  ]  60-176. 

VOL.  VI.  R  _ 


258  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

had  the  chief  influence  on  the  people,  and  yet  despite  this  fact  Irish 
and  Welsh  mythology  is  full  of  stories  about  fairy-women  coming 
from  the  Othervvorld  :  nor  i  *^here  any  proof,  or  even  good  ground 
for  argument  thai  +he  Irish  fairy-women  are  a  folk-memory  of 
druidesses,  for  if  there  ever  were  druidesses  in  Ireland  they  played 
a  subordinate  and  very  insignificant  rdle.  As  in  the  case  of  the 
Pygmy  Theory  we  maintain  that  the  Druid  Theory  also  is  a  partial 
and  inadequate  one.  It  discovers  a  real  anthropomorphic  influence 
at  work  on  the  outward  aspects  of  the  Fairy-Faith  and  illogically 
takes  that  to  be  the  origin  of  the  Fairy-Faith/  ^ 

This  last  sentence,  it  will  be  seen,  begs  the  whole 
question  ;  because  it  assumes  that  those  who  regard  the 
tales  of  the  ddoine-sidhe  as  a  memory  of  the  druids  are 
radically  in  error,  which  is  the  point  at  issue.  If  the  view 
taken  by  the  advocates  of  that  theory  should  prove  to  be 
correct,  there  would  be  no  anthropomorphism  in  the  case. 

In  order  that  Mr.  Wentz's  position  may  not  be  misunder- 
stood, I  have  placed  his  synopsis  before  the  reader  ;  although 
several  of  his  statements  appear  to  me  to  require  correction. 
But  instead  of  controverting  ^these  in  detail  I  shall  go  on  to 
adduce  considerations  which  tend  to  support  the  opinions  of 
the  other  side.  In  doing  this  I  cannot  avoid  introducing 
at  the  outset  the  well-worn  subject  of  the  druids;  with 
regard  to  which,  however,  there  is  still  a  great  deal  to  be 
said,  especially  from  the  point  of  view  of  Gaelic  chronicle 
and  tradition. 

The  conventional  idea  of  a  druid  is  aptly  sustained  by 
the  dignified  and  venerable  personages,  with  long  beards 
and  flowing  white  robes,  who  figure  in  the  opera  of  Norma, 
For  this  conception,  there  is  no  doubt  a  certain  amount  of 
authority.  Druids,  nevertheless,  are  often  represented  to 
us  under  aspects  which  do  not  suggest  either  dignity  or 
veneration.  O' Curry  ^  speaks  of  them  as  '  little  better 
than  conjurers  .  .  .  sorcerers,  and  rain-dogtors,  who  pre- 
tend to  call  down  the  storms  and  the  snow,  and  frighten  the 
people  with  the  fluttering  wisp  and  other  childish  charms. 

*  Op.  cit,  pp.  xix-xx.  V 

'  Manuscript  Materials  of  Ancient  History  of  Irdandy  1861. 


DBUIDS  AND  MOUND-DWELLERS  259 

They  divined  by  the  observation  of  sneezing  and  omens, 
by  their  dreams  after  holding  a  bull-feast,  or  chewing  raw- 
horseflesh  in  front  *of  their  idols,  by  the  croaking  of  their 
ravens  and  chirping  of  tame  wrens,  or  by  the  ceremony^  of 
licking  the  hot  edge  of  bronze  taken  out  of  the  rowan-tree 
faggot.  .  .  .  The  cl^ief  or  Arch-Druid  of  Tara  is  shown  to  us 
as  a  leaping  juggler  with  ear-clasps  of  gold  and  a  speckled 
cloak  ;  he  tosses  swords  and  bafUs  into  the  air.'  Dr.  Whitley 
Stokes  defines  druth  as  denoting  a  wizard,  buffoon,  and 
jester.^  Professor  Kuno  Meyer  takes  the  last  of  these  terms 
as  the  equivalent  of  druth  ;  ^  and  the  word  is  also  thus 
translated  by  Dr.  Hayes  O' Grady  in  his  Gaih  Mhucrama,  at 
which  battle,  we  are  told,  '  Maccon  proceeded  to  confer  with 
his  jester,  Dodera  by  name,  whose  precise  origin  was  of 
the  corca  Luighe,'  ^  Some  of  these  references,  particularly 
the  description  of  the  chief  Druid  of  Tara,  denote  a  caste 
closely  resembling  the  jongleurs  and  mountebanks  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  are  certainly  not  antagonistic  to  the  theory 
broached  by  Dr.  John  MacCuUoch  in  1824,  that  modern 
gypsies  are  descended  from  the  druids  ; .  it  being  uMerstood, 
for  the  moment,  that  only  the  question  of  common  char- 
acteristics is  considered.  Gaelic  accounts  agree  in  making 
the  druids  fortune-tellers,  necromancers,  and  professors  of 
occult  science  ;  and  that  they  understood  hypnotism  is 
evident  from  their  use  of  '  the  druidic  sleep  '  and  '  illusion.' 

^  Bevue  Celtiq7i»^  t  xvi.  :  Paris  181^5.  *  Dil,  daughter  of  Lugniannair,  eloped  from 
the  land  of  the  Men  of  Falga  (the  Isle  of  Mann)  with  Tulchainde,  Conaire's  wizard.' 
The  Gaelic  is  Tulchainde  drai  Conaire  (p.  62  >t  Stokes  adds :  '  His  druid  (or 
rather  chief  buffoon)  Tulchinne  or  Taulchinne  is  described  in  LU.  {Leabhar  na  h-  Uidhre) 
926-93a.'  Again  (p.  74) :  '  ToUchenn,  the  jester  of  Enna  Cennselach  or  of  Eochaid, 
Enna  Cennselach's  son,  fell  in  a  battle  against  the  Saxons  on  the  Ictian  Sea  [the 
English  Channel],  when  Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages  was  mortally  wounded  by  Eochaid's 
hand  [A.b.  405,  Four  Masters].  The  jester's  head  was  cut  off,  and*  together  with  it 
the  helmet.'  The  Gaelic  is  Tollchend,  druth  Enna  Cendselaig.  A  druidess  is  thus 
referred  to  (p.  34) :  '  Dreco,  daughter  of  Calmael  son  of  Cartan,  son  of  Connath, 
was  a .  druidess  and  a  female  rhymer.'  The  Gaelic  is  bandrui  agus  banliccerd. 
Another  version  describes  her  as  '  a  wizard  and  a  good  poet '  {drui  agus  degjili).  She 
was  also  a  poison-monger. 

2  Bevue  GeUique,  372-397,  t.  xiii.  :  Paris,  1892. 

3  Silva  Gadelica,  Irish  Text,  p.  311  ;  Eng.  trans.,  p.  349. 


U 


260  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

The  Scottish  mediaeval  legislation  directed  against  those 
who  practised  '  charming '  and  other  '  abused  sciences ' 
'certainly  points  to  a  survival  of  druidic  ideas. 

The  word  '  druid '  (for  the  capital  letter  may  be  dis- 
pensed with)  is,  however,  so  comprehensive  that  it  is 
somewhat  difi&cult  to  know  when  it  ought  to  be  held  as 
solely  applicable  to  the  magic-workers  of  a  special  race. 
Skene  furnishes  us  with  illustrations  of  this  complication. 
He  cites  two  tracts  in  the  Leabhar  Breac  in  which  the  Magi 
of  the  New  Testament  ^Sre  called  drnids  ;  and  he_  quotes 
the  well-known  line  attributed  to  St.  Columba,  'My  Drui 
is  Christ  the  Son  of  God.'  Then,  again,  there  is  mention  of 
Drostan  th^  druid  of  the  Picts,  and  of  Broichan  the  magus 
or  druid  of  King  Brude.  St.  Patrick  is  also  described  as  in 
conflict  with  the  druids  or  magi  of  King  Laogaire  ;  and  the 
saint  prays  to  be  protected 

'  Against  snares  of  demons, 
Against  black  laws  of  heathenry, 
Against  spells  of  women,  smiths,  and  druids.' 

'  He  fought  against  hard-hearted  druids,'  is  said  of  the  same 
saint  in  an  ancient  hymn ;  while  other  druids  of  the  Irish 
Picts  are  referred  to  as  '  demon-like.' 

*  Necromancy  and  idolatry,  illusion, 
In  a  fair  and  well-walled  house ; 
Plundering  in  ships,  bright  poems. 
By  them  were  taught ; 
The  honouring  of  sreod  and  omens, 
Choice  of  weather,  lucky  times, 
The  watching  the  voice  of  birds  ' 

They  practised  without  disguise.' 

Skene  further  shows  that  the  son  of  a  druid  did  not  always 
follow  his  father's  profession,  for  he  quotes  Adamnan  who 
'  tells  of  a  robber  who  dwelt  in  the  island  of  Colonsay  and 
was  in  the  habit  of  crossing  to  Mull  and  stealing  the  young 
seals  which  were  bred  for  the  use  of  the  monastery  of  lona, 
and  whom  he  terms  Ere  Mocudruidi,  or  Ere  the  Druid's 


DRUIDS  AND  MOUND-DWELLERS  261 

son.'^  That  the  son  of  a  druid  should  be  a  thief  seems  to 
point  to  a  lack  of  moral  teaching  on  the  part  of  the  father. 
But  the  stealing  of  young  seals  is,  from  the  moral  stand- 
point, a  venial  offence  when  compared  with  the  picture 
given  in  the  Booh  of  Fenagh  of  the  obscene  behaviour  of 
the  druids  of  Leitrim   and  Cavan,  referred  to  in  a  very  ^v 

suggestive  connection  by  Dr.  J.  H.  Todd  in  his  Introduction 
to  The  War  of  the  Gaedhil  jvith  the  GailU 

Whatever  be  the  origin — Accadian,  Turanian,  or  what 
not — of  that  blend  of  science  and  empiricism  which  con- 
stituted the  .system  of  the  druids  of  these  islands,  it  is  evident 
that  trickery  of  one  kind  or  another  entered  largely  into  its  ^ 
composition.  This  fact  is  clearly  illustrated  by  an  incident 
in  which  an  Irish  druid,  Mailgenn,  played  a  leading  part. 
The  wrath  of  Mailgenn  and  his  brother-priests  was  aroused 
against  Cormac  Mac- Art,  King  of  Ireland,  because  Cormac 
refused  to  worship  their  idols.  According  to  some  accounts, 
Cormac' s  offence  was  that  he  declined  to  reverence  the 
druids  themselves.  The  two  versions  are  not  irreconcilable, 
because  priests  of  any  kind  are  always  ready  to  take  to 
themselves  the  reverence  paid  to  their  deity.  The  particular 
deity  whom  Cormac^,  objected  to  worship  was  the  great 
wooden  idol  known  as  the  Crom  Cruach  that,  aU  resplendent 
with  ornamentation  of  gold  and  silver,  stood  in  the  plain  of 
Moy  Slacht,  in  County  Cavan,  surrounded  by  twelve  lesser 
deities  adorned  with  brass.  These  appear  to  have  been  also 
made  of  wood;  but  the  story  suggests  that  the  term 
'  druid  circle/ -as  applied  to  megalithic  circles,  may  not  be  so 
much  amiss  'as  modern  scientific  arcjiseologists  are  inclined 
to  think.  In  any  case,  the  Orom  Cruach  was  a  mighty  god. 
Whether  he  was  the  same  as  the  Crom  Duhh,  and  what  is  the 
significance  of  crom  in  this  connection,  I  do  not  know. 
'  The  crooked  maggot '  is  one  interpretation  ;  whatever  that 
may  mean.     Sir  Sstmuel  Ferguson,  in  his  Lays  of  the  Western 

1  Skene's  Cdtk  Scotland,  vol.  ii.  p.  115  :  Edinburgh,  1877  ;  see  pp.  110-121  for 
other  references,  the  authorities  being  all  carefully  given. 
^  London,  1867,  p.  cxxii,  footnote  2, 

S 


262  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Oad,  thus  describes  Cofmac's  contemptuous  attitude  to- 
wards the  Crom  : — 

'  "  Crom  Cruach  and  his  sub-gods  twelve," 
Said  Cormac,  "are  but  carven  treene;^ 
The  axe  that  made  them,  haft  or  helve. 
Had  worthier  of  our  worship  been. 

*  "  But  He  who  made  the  tree  to  grow, 

And  hid  in  earth  the  iron-stone,  , 

And  made  the  man  with  mind  to  know 
The  axe's  use,  is  God  alone." ' 

That  the  idols  whom  they  revered,  or  wished  people  to 
revere,  should  be  spoken  of  in  such  terms  was  too  much  for 
the  druids  of  Cavan.  So,  accordingly,  they  met  in  daily 
convocation  and,  with  many  heartfelt  curses,  turned  the 
magic  pebbles — the  clocha  hreca,  or  speckled  stones — from 
left  to  right,  in  order  that  their  evil  wishes  might  be  duly 

fuimied. 

'  They  loosed  their  curse  against  the  king ; 
They  cursed  him  in  his  flesh  and  bones ; 
And  daily  in  their  mystic  ring 
They  turn'd  the  maledictive  stones,' 

*  Till,  where  at  meat  the  monarch  sate. 

Amid  the  revel  and  the  wine, 
He  choked  upon  the  food  he  ate. 
At  Sletty,  southward  of  the  Boyne.' 

That  is  how  the  death  of  Cormac  at  Sletty,  or  Cletech, 
is  described  to  us  in  sonorous  numbers  by  Sir  Samhel 
Ferguson.  But,  although  his  death  was  actually  brought 
about  by  Mailgenn  the  druid,  the  method  employed  was 
much  more  direct  and  practical  than  that  of  invocation 
and  priestly  rites.  It  was  simply  this.  A  fish-bone  was 
designedly  kneaded  into  some  bread  which  was  placed  on 
the  royal  table,  for  the  king's  use,  and  the  bone  stuck  in 
Cormac' s  throat  and  choked  him.^ 

*  This  denotes  that  all  the  thirteen  idols  were  of  wood,  like  the  idols  of  the  Lapps 
and  Samoyeds  ;  but  possibly  Sir  Samuel  Ferguson  has  merely  assumed  this  to  have 
been  the  case. 

«  See  8Uva  Gaddica,  Eng.  Trans.,  p.  289  ;  also  the  Leabharna  h-Uidhre^  fol.  416 
(as  quoted  by  Petrie,  Bound  Towers^  pp.  96,  98). 


I 


I 


DRUIDS  AND  MOUND-DWELLERS  263 


i 

I  ^^sulted  from  '  the  enchantment  (siahrad)  which  Mailgenn 
P  ^  the  druid,  practised  upon  him,  after  Cormac  had  turned 
against  the  druids,  because  he  worshipped  God  rather  than 
them.'^  From  the  other  account,  just  quoted,  we  have  seen 
that  the  so-called  '  enchantment '  was  merely  a  malicious 
and  successful  trick.  But  the  most  striking  statement  in  the 
Four  Masters  version  is  that  Cormac  was  killed  by  the 
druids  '  because  he  worshipped  God  rather  than  them,'* 
What  had  roused  the  murderous  hate  of  those  heathen 
priests  was  the  fact  that  their  sway  was  imperilled  by  the 
conversion  of  the  king ;  and  they  felt  themselves  already 
beginning  to  slip  from  the  exalted,  semi-divine  position 
which  they  had  arrogated  to  themselves.  In  this  passage, 
the  Crom  and  his  twelve  sub-gods  are  passed  over  in  silence  ; 
the  worst  phase  of  the  offence  was  the  refusal  to  acknowledge 
the  supernatural  character  of  the  druids. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  Mailgenn  is  said  to  have  accom- 
plished his  end  by  means  of  siahrad.  This  is  a  significant 
word,  for  it  denotes  the  form  of  magic  employed  by  the 
siahhras,  or  daoine-sidhe,  otherwise  the  Tuatha  De  Danann, 
Now,  there  is  a  passage  in  which  this  association  between 
Mailgenn  the  druid  and  the  sidbhras,  or  Tuatha  De  Danann,  is 
brought  much  more  closely  together.  The  passage  referred 
to  occurs  in  the  Senchas  na  Relec,  or  History  of  the  Ceme- 
teries. It  does  not  appear  in  the  twelfth-century  Leahhar 
na  h-  Uidhre,  of  which  the  Senchas  na  Relec  forms  a  part,  but 
in  '  a  second  copy  of  the  same  tract  [^.e.  the  Senchas], 
preserved  in  an  ancient  vellum  manuscript  in  the  Library 
of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  Class  H.  3,  17."  In  this  manu- 
script the  death  of  King  Cormac  is  also  chronicled.  But  it 
is  there  stated  that  he  was  killed  by  '  the  Siabhras,  i,e,  the 
Tuatha  De  Danann,  for  they  were  called  Siabhras.'  From 
this  statement,  one  is  bound  to  infer  (1)  that  the  chroniclers 

-   1  See  Dr.  Whitley  Stokes  at  p.  512  of  Folk-Lore  (London,  D.  Nutt),  December 
1892. 

2  See  Petrie's  Round  TowerSy  p.  96. 


264  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

differed  as  to  the  authorship  of  the  death  of  Cormac,  or 
(2)  that  the  chroniclers  did  not  differ,  and  that,  conse- 
quently, the  Siabhras,  or  Tuatha  De  Danann,  were  the  same 
people  as  the  druids.  In  other  words,  that  the  driiids  were 
daoine'SidliP.,  or  moiind-people.^ 

Here,  then,  if  now  hero  else,  the  supporters  of  what  Mr. 
Wentz  calls  '  the  druid  theory  to  account  for  fairies '  wiU 
find  their  opinions  strongly  confirme<|,  and  in  direct  words. 
But  there  is  also  much  indirect  evidence  of  the  same  kind. 
Mention  has  been  made,  for  example,  of  King  Conaire's 
druid,  jester,  or  buffoon,  named  Tulchinne,  who  eloped  with 
Dil,  the  daughter  of  Lugmannair.^  Now,  we  are  further 
informed  with  regard  to  this  druid  Tulchinn  that  '  there 
was  friendship  between  him  and  the  Morrigan.'  Dr. 
Whitley  Stokes,  who  supplies  these  statements,  adds  the 
explanation :  '  The  Morrigan  was  one  of  the  Tuatha  de 
Danann.'^  Thus,  in  this  case,  a  druid  appears  as  the 
intimate  friend  of  a  bean-sidh,  or  hiUock  woman.  The  same 
association  is  seen  when  we  consider  th^  habitations  assigned 
to  druids  and  to  hillbck  folk. 

The  rude,  bee-hive  huts  which,  in  the  islands  of  St. 
Kilda  and  Boreray,  are  traditionally  known  as  *  druids' 
houses,'  are  closely  related  to,  and  are  sometimes  identified 
with  the  earth-covered  structures  of  stone  which  are 
attributed  to  the  daoine-sidhe.  To  outward  appearance 
mounds  (sidhe),  these  latter  are,  in  many  cases,  found  to  be 
stone  buildings  of  the  same  primitive  order  of  architecture 
as  the  bee-hive  huts ;  and  indeed  are  actually  such  huts 
heaped  over  with  earth  and  stones,  and  covered  with  green 
turf.  In  the  course  of  an  instructive  monograph  on 
Beehive  Houses,  Duns,  and  Stone  Circles,  Mr.  W.  M. 
Mackenzie,  M.A.,  cites  two  references  of  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  to  druids'  houses.     '  A  reference  to  bee- 

*  In  the  preceding  number  of  the  Celti-c  Review  (October  16,  1909),  there  is  a 
special  reference,  at  p.  167,  to  the  meaning  of  sidj  or  sidhy  and  its  compounds. 
'  See  p.  259,  ante,  note  1. 
»  Kevue  Celtique^  t.  ivi.,  pp.  62-63  :  Paris,  1896, 


DfeuIDS  AND  MOUND-DWELLEES  265 

hive  structures,'  he  observes,  '  is  almost  certainly  intended 
in  the  words  of  Martin  (c.  1695)  speaking  of  Skye,  where 
none,  however,  is  said  now  to  exist.  After  describing  some 
"  earth  houses,"  he  writes  :  "  There  are  several  little  stone 
houses  built  above  ground  capable  only  of  one  person,  ani 
round  in  form.  They  are  called  Tey-nin-druinich,  i.e. 
Druids'  House."  '  Mr.  Mackenzie,  although  not  himself 
attaching  weight  to  traditional  lore,  further  refers  to 
Pennant's  niention  of  similar  structures  in  Glenbeg,  Glenelg  : 
*  Almost  contiguous  to  this  entrance,  or  portico  [of  one  of  the 
duns  in  Glenbeg],  was  a  small  circle  formed  of  rude  stones, 
which  was  called  the  foundation  of  the  Druids'  houses.  I 
was  told  there  were  manj^^  others  of  the  kind  scattered  over 
the  valley.'^ 

It  is  necessary  to  discriminate  when  one  considers  the 
various  buildings  of  this  special  order  of  architecture. 
While  many  were  obviously  built  for  human  habitation, 
there  are  others  of  a  more  doubtful  description.  Those 
little  stone  houses  of  which  Martin  speaks,  '  capable  on|y 
of  one  person,'  may  indeed  have  been  cells  occupied  by 
solitary  druids,  after  the  manner  of  Eastern  hermits  at  the 
present  day.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  they  may  have  been 
built  for  some  other  purpose.  They  may  have  been  sweat-N 
baths,  such  as  were  formerly  used  in  Ireland  ;  or  they  may 
have  been  lamb-cotes.^  Although  keeping  these  possibilities 
in  view,  one  must  nevertheless  remember  that  a  great  number 
of  such  buildings,  whether  covered  by  earth  or  not,  were  of 
much  larger  dimensions,  and,  were  obviously  used,  as  human 
habitations. 

^  See  pp.  184-186  of  vol.  xxxviii.  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries 
of  Scotland  (1903-1904),  in  the  course  of  Mr.  Mackenzie's  article. 

2  Forty-three  years  ago,  the  late  Captain  Thomas  uttered  a  word  of  warning  in 
this  respect.  He  had  found  several  tiny  beehive  huts  which  seemed  much  too  small 
for  human  habitation.  They  were  situated  beside  a  hvaile  crothaidh  (gathering -^oM)^ 
and  proved  to  be  merely  cotanan  in  which  lambs  and  kids  were  placed  while  they 
were  being  speaned.j  '  I  have  thought  it  necessary  to  notice  them,'  observes  Captain 
Thomas,  'as  in  a  few  years'  time  it  might  be  the  matter  of  controversy  whether  they 
were  erected  by  the  Picts  or  the  Druids.' — Proc.  Soc.  Antiq.  Scotland,  vol.  vii. 
p.  176. 


266  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

It  is  often  hastily  assumed  that,  because  of  their  primi- 
tive nature,  buildings  of  this  kind  are  always  of  great  anti- 
quity. In  a  certain  number  of  cases,  such  an  assumption 
would  be  quite  misleading.  '  The  continued  use  of  the 
cahers,  lisses,  and  raths  is  very  interesting,'  observes  Mr. 
T.  J.  Westropp,^  '  and  has  been  treated  at  greater  length  in 
these  pages. ^  Donough  Cairbreach  O'Brien,  some  time 
before  his  death  in  1242,  made  "  a  circular  fort  and  princely 
palace  of  earth  "  at  Clonroad — probably  the  last  "  digging 
of  a  royal  rath "  in  Celtic  history.  Conor  na  Siudaine 
before  1267  made  his  father's  rath  into  "  a  permanent 
stronghold  with  earthworks."  Mortough  O'Brien's  men, 
when  among  the  De  Burgos,  "  successfully  contest  their 
fair  share  of  the  cahers."  Mahon  Macnamara  cai^p  ','  to 
the  very  caher "  where  his  friends  were  dealing  for  his 
release.  On  the  other  hand,  Ruan's  cahers  were  grass- 
topped  in  1317,  and  "  even  every  man  in  a  caher's  souter- 
rain  "  (ooan  means  both  "  caher  "  and  "  artificial  cave  " 
in  northern  Clare)  was  summoned  by  Prince  Donough  to 
the  fight  of  Corcomroe^  [in  1317].  The  following  winter 
"  every  ollave  rested  in  his  rath,  every  coarb  in  his  church, 
and  every  layman  in  his  liss."  ' 

From  these  references  it  appears  that  the  underground 
structures  of  County  Clare  were  in  regular  occupation  in 
the  year  1317.  If  might  also  be  inferred,  from  the  use  of 
the  qualifying  '  even,'  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  souterrains 
were  not  regarded  as  specially  good  fighting  men,  and  were 
only  called  out  in  extreme  cases.  But  the  statement  that 
'  every  ollave  rested  in  his  rath '  is  perhaps  more  striking. 
In  Irish  folk-lore  the  raths  are  intimately  associated  with 
the  daoine-sidhe,  and  this  passage  indicates  that  in  1317 
they  were  the  abodes  of  a  learned  or  druidic  caste. 

Another  Irish  reference,  dealing  with  an  earlier  date, 
has  similar  suggestions.     On  the  eve  of  the  battle  of  Clontarf 

*  In  the  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Irish  Academy,  vol.  xxxii.,  Section  C,  Part  ii., 
p.  158. 

*  Op.  citf  vol.  xxxi.  pp.  624-632, 


DRUIDS  AND  MOUND-DWELLEES  267 

(a.d.  1014),  Prince  Murchadh  informs  his  friend  Dunlang 
O'Hartigan  that,  in  mounds  and  mound-burghs,  '  i  sithaib 
ocus  i  sithhrugaih,^  hfe  had  been  tempted  with  the  promise  of 
worldly  advantages  and  eventually  eternal  life,  '  but  I  never 
abandoned  for  one  night  my  country  nor  my  inheritance 
for  them.'  ^ 

Turning  from  these  mediaeval  chroniclers  to  the  modern 
advocates  of  '  the  druid  theory,'  let  us  see  what  the  latter 
have  to  say.  '  The  first  suggestion  of  this  theory,'  observes 
Mr.  Wentz,  '  seems  to  have  been  made  by  Patrick  Graham, 
in  his  Sketches  Descriptive  of  Picturesque  Scenery  on  the 
Southern  Confines  of  Perthshire,  published  in  ^1806.'  This 
statement  requires  to  be  slightly  amended,  for  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Cririe,  minister  of  Dalton,  Dumfriesshire,  had  previously 
offered  the  same  hypothesis  in  his  Scottish  Scenery,  published 
in  1803.^  It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  two  reverend  doctors 
had  discussed  the  matter  together  in  the  manse  of  Aberf  oyle. 

Dr.  Cririe  remarks  as  follows  : — 

*  A  belief  in  fairies  prevailed  very  much  in  the  Highlands  of  old, 
indeed  over  all  Scotland ;  nor  has  it  wholly  ceased  at  the  present 
time.  A  small  conical  hill,  called  Sien,  was  assigned  them  for  a 
dwelling  ;  from  which  melodious  music  was  frequently  heard,  and 
gleams  of  light  seen  in  dark  nights.^  .  .  .  Most  of  the  traditional 
stories  respecting  fairies,  especially  such  as  represented  them  as 
embodied  spirits,  might  perhaps  be  accounted  for  upon  supposition 
that  the  druids,  or  rather  some  conquered  Aborigines,  had  fled  from 
their  enemies,  and  taken  up  their  residence  in  those  subterraneous 
dwellings  so  frequently  discovered  in  digging  in  various  parts  of 
Scotland,  and  m  some  places  called  Picts'  Houses.  Covered  with 
artificial  mounts,  they  were  generally  green  hills.  When  the 
country  came  to  be  inhabited  around  them,  a  regard  for  their  own 

1  Tlie  War  of  the  Gaedhil  with  the  Gaill,  by  Dr.  J.  H.  Todd,  pp.  172-173 :  London, 
1867.  Dr.  Todd  points  out  (p.  clxxix,  footnote)  that  in  another  account  Dunlang 
O'Hartigan  is  himself  designated  a  sioguidhe. 

2  London,  Caddel  and  Davies,  pp.  347-348. 

'  The  Gaelic  chroniclers  of  Ireland  quite  recognised  the  existence  of  mound-dwell- 
ings in  Scotland.  Thus,  in  The  Colloquy  of  the  Ancients,  Cormac  asks  his  men  to  seek 
if  there  be  any  tidings  of  Finn  '  in  any  hillock  of  Ireland's  or  of  Scotland's  mound- 
burghs,'— i  sM  do  shidhhrogaib  Eirenn  nd  Alban. — SUva  Gadelica^  Irish  text,  p.  203  j 
Eng.  trans.,  p.  230. 


268  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

safety  would  induce  them  to  lie  hid  by  day,  and  to  come  abroad 
Qnly  in  the  night :  it  would  be  of  consequence,  if  at  any  time  their 
occasions  should  force  them  abroad  in  daylight,  that  their  clothing 
should  be  as  like  the  ground  as  possible  ;  hence  they  were  always 
dressed  in  green.  Their  narrow  dwellings  kept  them  much  confined 
by  day  ;  hence  the  exercise  of  dancing  by  moonlight  must  have 
been  to  them  most  delightful,  and  frequently  repeated  in  remote 
glens  and  sequestered  places.  Hence  also  their  music  by  night 
in  the  open  air ;  by  day  in  their  dwellings  it  might  have  betrayed 
them.  Hence  also,  in  dark  nights,  those  gleams  of  light, ^  which 
were  necessary  to  find  their  way  to  water,  or  anything  else  they  might 
need.  Their  stock  of  provisions  might  at  times  run  short ;  hence 
their  females,  appearing  in  green  gowns,  borrowing  oatmeal,  and 
repaying  it.  Their  families,  in  that  confined  state  of  life,  from 
putrid  or  infectious  diseases,  might  become  thin,  or  wisSc  away  ; 
and  hence  their  carrjdng  off  women  and  children  to  recruit  their 
stock  :  hence  also  the  return  of  those  carried  off,  being  permitted  to 
depart,  after  several  years  of  absence  from  their  own  families,  under 
a  promise  of  keeping  their  secret.  Difficulties  may  be  started  ;  but 
r  nch  a  supposition  ^  serves  to  account  for  stories  that  passed  current 
with  people  who,  though  superstitious,  and  apt  to  be  imposed  upon 
by  their  own  imagination,  were  not  indifferent  with  regard  to  what 
they  thought  to  be  truth,  more  than  people  of  the  present  age.' 

This  is  the  hypothesis  set  forth  by  Dr.  Cririe  in  1803. 
Three  years  later,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Graham  published  his 
Sketches  of  Perthshire^  in  -^he  course  of  which  work  he  gives 
expression  to  opinions  identical  with  those  already  advanced 
by  Dr.  Cririe.  ^ir  Walter  Scott  thought  Graham's  hypothe- 
sis highly  deserving  of  mention,  but  he  only  gave  it  a 
qualified  approval.  In  the  second  edition  of  his  Sketches^ 
published  in  1812,  Graham  observes  in  a  footnote :  ^  '  Mr. 
Scott,  in  Note  vii.  to  Canto  iv.  of  the  Lady  of  the  Lake^ 
expresses  his  dissent  from  this  theory.  .  .  .  Without  pre- 
suming to  provoke  a  controversy  with  Mr.  Scott  on  the 
subject,  the  author  may  be  permitted  to  retain  his  theory 
imtil  objections  sufficiently  valid  are  advanced.' 

*  At  this  plice  Dr.  Oririe  wealv^  inteiyects  the  alternative  c1an?e  ' or  thai  of  a 
(Vm'v  utive  lunar  race.'  As  the  meffition  of  this  alternative  disturbs  his  main  argument, 
it  seems  desirable  to  relegate  it  to  a  footnote. 

«  Pp.  260,  261.  ^ 


DRUIDS  AND  MOUND-DWELLERS  269 

Although  Dr.  Graham's  views  coincide  exactly  with 
those  of  Dr.  Cririe,  it  is  important  to  state  them  here  in 
his  own  words.  By-way  of  preface,  the  following  items 
of  local  folk-lore  may  be  quoted  ;  ^ — 

'  The  men  of  peace  ^  [hillockrjaen]  are  believed  to  be  always  dressed 
in  gredn  ;  and  are  supposed  to  take  offence  when  any  of  mortal 
race  piiesume  to  w^ar  their  favourite  colour.  .  .  . 

'  They  are  believed  to  inhabit  certain  round,  grassy  'iminences, 
where  they  celebrate  their  nocturnal  festivities  by  the  light  of  the 
moon.  About  a  mile  beyond  the  source  of  the  Forth,  above 
Lochcon,  there  is  a  place  called  Coir-shi'an,  or  the  cove  of  the  men  of 
peace  [hillock] ,  which  is  still  supposed  to  be  a  favourite  place  of  their 
residence.  In  the  neighbourhood  are  to  be  seen  many  round,, 
cpnical  eminences  ;  particularly  one  near  the  head  of  the  lake,  by 
the  skirts  of  which  many  are  still  afraid  to  pass,  after  sunset.  It  is 
believed  that  if,  on  Hallow  Eve,  any  person  goes  alone  round  one  of 
the  hills  nine  times,  towards  the  left  hand  (sinistrorsum),  a  door 
shall  open,  by  which  he  will  be  admitted  into  their  subterraneous 
abodes. 

'  The  Reverend  Robert  Kirk,  the  first  translator  of  the  Psalms 
mto  Gaelic  verse,  had  formerly  been  minister  at  Balquidder  ;  and 
died  minister  of  Aberfoyle  in  1688,  at  the  early  age  of  42.  .  .  . 
H^  was  walking,  it  is  said,  one  evening  in  his  nightgown  [dressing- 
gown]  upon  the  little  eminence  to  the  west  of  the  present  manse, 
which  is  still  reckoned  as  a  Dun  shi\  He  fell  down  dead,  as  was 
believed  ;  but  this  was  not  his  fate.  .  .  .' 

Dr.  Graham  then,  some  pages  later,  proceeds  towards  his 
conclusion : — 

*  Before  we  proceed  farther  in  this  account  of  the  still  prevalent 
superstition  of  the  Daoine  Shi",  it  may  be  observed  that  it  evidently 
appears  to  be  founded  on  the  history  and  fate  of  the  druidical  order, 
who  formerly,  in  matters  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  held  the  supreme 
sway  ifi  Celtic  Europe.  That  this  hierarchy  existed  in  Scotland  can 
be  proved  satisfactorily  from  other  sources  ;  but  it  is  presumed  that, 
to  an  inquiring  mind,  the  stiU  remaining  traces  of  this  superstition  of 
the  Daoine  Shi",  or  men  of  peace  [hiUockmen],  will  furnish  the  best 
evidence  of  their  identity  vvicxi  the  aneiv;!  l  Driias,  as  well  as  the  best 

MPp.  248-250  and  253.     The  edition  here  followed  is  that  of  1812. 

*  The  fallaciousness  of  this  translation  of  sidh  has  already  been  pointed  out. 


; 


270  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

documents  that  can  now  be  obtained  of  the  particular  tenets  of  a 
system  of  worship  whose  essence  was  secrecy  and  the  knowledge  of 
which  has  been  buried  with  the  extinction  of  the  order  who  professed 
it.  In  whatever  way,  however,  this  opinion  may  be  now  [1806] 
estimated,  it  may  be  permitted  to  suggest  that  it  is  by  no  meane 
improbable  that  in  the  slight  sketch  which  is  here  offered  of  a 
mythology  which  is  daily  losmg  ground  the  principal  features  of  the 
polity  and  doctrines  of  this  ancient  and  powerful,  though,  in  many 
respects,  horrible  hierarchy  will  one  day  be  clearly  recognised. 

'  Even  in  the  little  legends  which  have  been  given,  degraded  as 
they  are  by  many  puerile  extravagancies,  may  we  not  recognize  some 
traits  of  the  druidical  institutions  which  they  so  studiously  concealed  ? 
May  we  not  trace  in  them  something  of  the  mode  by  which  the 
Druids  procured  the  necessary  supply  of  members  for  their  order  ? 
May  we  not  trace  in  them  the  period  of  the  noviciate  of  the  disciples, 
which,  when  it  had  elapsed,  fixed  their  condition  irrevocably,  as 
well  »as  the  general  reluctance  which  must  have  been  felt  by  young 
persons  of  either  sex,  to  seclude  themselves  for  ever  from  the  gaieties 
of  the  world,  and  to  devote  themselves  to  retirement  and  a  course 
of  painful  studies  ?  '^ 

After  further  remarks  to  the  same  effect,  he  goes  on  ; — 

'  *  Accordingly,  we  have  the  best  grounds  from  history  to  conclude 
that  the  Druids  were  enabled,  by  such  practices,  to  maintain  some 
traces  of  their  order  for  many  centuries  after  its  great  catastrophe.* 

"     Again,  on  a  later  page  (p.  268) : — 

*  The  deceptive  power  [illusion,  charming,  or  hypnotism]  by 
which  the  men  of  peace  are  believed  to  impose  upon  the  senses  of 
mankind   is   still   termed  in  the   Gaelic   language,   Druid* -eachd ; 

*  That  Mr.  Wentz  is  not  entirely  opposed  to  this  interpretation  may  be  sec^  at 
pp.  134-135  of  his  Fairy-Faith,  where  he  recounts  a  meeting  between  St.  Patrick,  in 
company  with  the  King  of  Ulster  and  his  nobles,  and  a  young  man  who  announces, 
on  being  questioned,  that  he  has  come  '  out  of  the  sidli  of  the  Daghda's  son  Bodlib 
Derg,  out  of  Ireland's  southern  part.'  He  further  states  ;  '  I  am  CiUBcorach,  son  of 
Cainchinn  that  is  ollave  to  the  Tuatha  de  Danann,  find  am  myself  the  jiiakings  of  an 
ollave '  (i.e.,  an  aspirant  to  the  grade). 

With  this  passjige  may  be  compared  the  account  (Fairy-Faith,  p.  21,  note),  of  a 
certain  Welsh  cromlech  in  connection  with  which  *  tradition  says  there  was  once  a 
flourishing  pagan  school  for  neophytes,  and  that  the  cromlech,  instead  of  being  a  place 
for  interments  or  for  sacrifices  was  in  those  days  completely  enclosed,  forming  like  other 
cromlechs  a  darkened  chamber  in  which  novices  when  initiated  were  placed  for  a  certain 
number  of  days — the  interior  being  called  the  "  Womb  or  Court  of  Oariadwen."  / 


DEUIDS  AND  MOUND-DWELLERS  271  , 

founded,  probably,  on  the  opinion  entertained  of  old  concerning  the 
magical  powers  of  the  Druids/ 


\\ 


Finally,  and  with  special  reference  to  a  story  of  a 
country  girl  who  bore  three  children  to  a  young  fear-sidh, 
who  was  in  consequence  killed  by  the  girl's  brothers,  Dr. 
Graham  thus  concludes  :  ^ — 

'  In  this  legend  there  seems  to  be  an  obvious  reference  to  a 
period  when  the  men  of  peace  [hillockmen],  that  is,  the  Druids,  were 
considered,  with  the  exception  of  the  sacred  mystery  and  solemn 
obligations  of  their  order,  as  mere  ordinary  mortals.  And  it  would 
even  seem  that,  in  certain  cases,  and  under  certain  conditions,  those 
who  had  been  initiated  in  these  mysteries  might  be  relieved  from 
their  vows.  All  this  is  human,  and  belongs  to  the  order  of  man. 
The  shades  of  this  ancient  institution,  it  is  true,  have,  with  the  lapse 
of  ma,ny  centuries,  become  very  faint ;  but  in  the  eye  of  the  antiquary , 
and  philosopher  it  may  appear  of  some  importance  to  exhibit  the 
faintest  tints,  and  to  concentrate,  from  every  quarter,  the  remaining 
lights  which  tend  to  illustrate  the  history  of  this  august  and  once 
powerful  order.' 

Two  of  the  nineteenth-century  exponents  of  this  theory 
have  now  been  quoted  with  sufficient  amplitude.  Mr. 
Wentz  also  cites  Alfred  Maury,  who,  '  in  Les  Fees  du 
Moyen-Age,  published  in  1843  at  Paris,  appears  to  have 
made  liberal  use  of  Patrick  Graham's  suggestions  in  setting 
up  his  theory  that  the  fees  or  fairy-women  of  the  Middle 
Ages  are  due  to  a  folk-memory  of  druidesses.'  As  I  have 
not  yet  seen  Maury's  book,  I  am^  not  in  a  position  to  pass 
any  remarks  upondt. 

In  my  previous  paper  upon  this  subject,^  I  observed 
that  '  the  theories  known  to  Mr.  Wentz  as  "  Pygmy  "  and 
"  Druid  "  are  one  in  substance,  whether  they  are  in  agree- 
ment with  each  other  ^r  not.'  They  are  one  in  substance, 
because  both  seek  to  explain  the  traditional  stories  of 
mound-dwellers  as  the  memory  of  a  race  of  real  people. 
Whether  they  are  in  agreement  with  each  other  is  another 
question.     The  first-mentioned  occupies  itself  chiefly  with 

1  Pp.  277-278.  2  (jgitic  Review,  October  15,  1909. 


272  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

ethnological  considerations,  and  the  latter  with  those 
relating  to  magic.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  two  are  not 
necessarily  in  conflict.  If  Scandinavia  had  been  the  region 
under  survey,  it  would  be  evident  that  the  two  theories 
are  simply  two  aspects  of  one  theory.  The  '  druids '  of 
Scandinavia  were  the  Lapps,  known  generally  as  '  Finns ' 
in  Norway  ;  and  Nilsson,  not  to  speak  of  others,  interprets 
the  Scandinavian  storips  of  pygmies  as  a  memory  of  the 
small-sized  race  of  the  Lapps  and  their  mound-dwellings. 

The  main  object  of  this  paper,  however,  has  been  to 
state  the  leading  arguments  in  favour  of  the  view  that  the 
druids  of  the  British  Isles  were  a  caste  of  magic- workers, 
not  very  different  from  Lapp  shamans,  wLose  permanent 
homes  were  chambered  mounds  and  souterrains.  To  what 
extent  these  arguments  will  appeal  to  the  readers  of  this 
Review  remains  to  be  seen. 

LANDAVENSIUM  ORDO  CHARTARUM— II 

Alfred  Anscombe 

We  now  come  to  the  dissection  of  twenty-four  grants  made 
to  Bishop  Oudoce,  or  Euddogwy.  During  his  episcopate 
the  diocese  of  Llandaff  recovered  from  the  demoralising 
effects  of  the  plague,  and  also  from  the  temporary  defection 
of  Oudoce' s  predecessor,  St.  Teilo.  Nearly  eight  years  of 
St.  Teilo' s  episcopate  were  spent  with  St.  Sampson  in 
Armorica  ;  and,  as  we  have  noted,  very  few  additions  to  the 
temporalities  of  the  see  are  recorded  as  having  been  made  in 
his  time.  The  spiritual  condition  of  the  diocese  of  Llandaff 
is  not  likely  to  have  been  much  better  then  than  that 
condemned  by  St.  Gildas  in  that  epistle  of  his  which  com- 
mences Britannia  habet  reges,  and  which  was  composed 
in  A.D.  499,  when  Gildas  began  to  be  about  thirty  years  old. 
After  the  publication  of  it  Gildas  spent  thirty  years  of  his 
long  life  in  the  valley  of  the  Wye,  and  in  the  island  of  Echin. 
His  intercourse  with  St.  Cadoc  and  St.  Iltyd  is  well  known  ; 
but  we  are  not  informed  whether  he  co-operated  with  St. 


LANDAVENSIUM  OEDO  CHAETAEUM— II  273 

>ogwin  also.  The  three  abbeys  founded  in  the  diocese  of 
Llandaff  by  these  eminent  churchmen  had  been  centres  of 
spiritual  light,  and 'intellectual  advancement  as  well,  for 
many  years  ;  but  Dogwin  had  died  in  a.d.  501,  and  it  is 
probable  that  neither  Cadoc  nor  Iltyd  long  survived  him. 
The  great  plague,  among  the  victims  of  which  was  Maelgwn, 
King  of  Gwynedd,  broke  out  in  Western  Britain  in  a.d.  509. 
When  Teilo  fled  to  Armorica,  shortly  after  it  began.  Bishop 
David  and  the  hermit  Gildas  were  the  only  prominent 
churchmen  left  in  Deheubarth.  Bishop  Teilo  came  back 
in  A.D.  517,  and  in  that  year  St.  David  of  Menevia  di^d,  and 
also  Gereint  map  Erbin,  the  Prince  of  Dyfneint,  Arthur's 
cousin.  We  do  not  know  how  long  Bishop  Teilo  survived, 
but  in  Oudoce's  Life  we  read  of  a  dispute  between  Bishop 
Oudoce  and  Gildas  himself.  It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  the 
consecration  of  Oudoce  must  be  assigned  to  the  interval  that 
fell  between  a.d.  517,  the  year  of  Teilo' s  return,  and  a.d.  529, 
the  year  of  Gildas' s  departure. 

No  explanation  is  afforded  of  the  state  of  things  indicated 
by  the  dissection  of  the  last  six  charters — namely,  the  sur- 
vival of  Bishop  Oudoce  into  the  reign  of  Ithail  map  Morcant 
map  Athruis,  and  the  fact  that  six  donations  were  made  to 
Bishop  Berthgwyn  during  the  reign  of  Morcant  map 
Athruis  himself.  If  the  entry  of  Oudoce's  name  in  No. 
XL VIII.  be  not  a  mistake  for  Berthgwyn's — a  view  that 
the  present  writer  does  not  incline  to,  Oudoce's  advancing 
years  may  be  supposed  ta  have  necessitated  the  appoint- 
ment of  Berthgwyn  as  adjutor,  or  as  suffragan. 

In  No.  XXXV.  Sadoc  and  Guonocatui  appear  among 
the  laymen.  The  abbreviation  d,  stands  for  dedit,  or 
immolauit,  or  whatever  term  describes  the  act  of  the  donor. 

Corrigenda  ( 

P.  127.      XII.  for        eliud        read  elnid 

for     i.  (concu)     read  iv. 
P.  129.    XIV.  for  iii.  (elharnn)  read  vi. 
for    ii.  (iudnou)    read  v. 
XXII.  for  iii.  (bithen)     read  vi. 

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278  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 


SOME  UNRECORDED  INCIDENTS  OF  THE 
JVOOBFTE  RISINGS 

Alexander  Carmichael 

Numerous  traditions  survive  throughout  the  Highlands 
and  Islands  regarding  the  Stuart  kings  and  the  Stuart 
wars.  The  writer  took  down  many  of  these  from  the 
mouths  of  old  people,  and  now  renders  them  from  Gaelic 
into  English.  The  traditions  are  given  without  method  or 
sequence. 

^— 

The  Stuarts  lost  their  crown  through  their  adherence 
to  the  old  beliefs.  They  devoutly  believed  in  the  divine 
righf.  Qf  kingfl  and  bled  and  died  for  their  belief.  The  world 
aas  travelled  far  since  then,  no  belief  being  tenable  now 
unless  it  be  conducive  to  the  public  weal. 

The  Stuart  kings  of  Scotland  were  allied  to  the  Bourbon 
kings  of  France.  The  Bourbons  were  as  obstinate  as 
the  Stuarts  themselves  and  suffered  similarly.  Buona- 
parte said  truly  if  harshly,  '  The  Bourbons  are  donkeys  ; 
they  learn  nothing,  they  forget  nothing.' 

Many  attempts  were  made  by  the  Stuarts  to  regain  the 
crown  which  their  blind  infatuation  had  lost.  Highlanders 
joined  in  these  attempts.  Lowlanders  accuse  Highlanders 
of  joining  in  these  risings  blindly.  The  accusation  js  imjust 
and  ungenerous.  It  was  not  their  blindness  to  the  faults 
of  the  Stuarts,  but  their  loyalty  to  their  long  line  of 
hereditary  kings,  and  their  affection  foi'  their  long  line  of 
hereditary  kinsmen,  that  impelled  Highlanders  to  cling 
to  the  Stuarts.  Relatives  may  not  approve  of  all  things 
in  the  lives  of  their  kindred,  but  they  cling  to  them,  fight 
for  them,  and  die  for  them  notwithstanding. 

Many  families  of  note  throughout  the  Highlands  and 
Islands  claim  kinship  with  the  Royal  House  of  Stuart. 


■^  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  JACOBITE  EISINGS     279 

Blood  is  thicker  than  water,  kinship  is  harder  than  life, 
I    fpstership  stronger  than  death. 

^^_^  *  Cairdeas  gu  fichead 

^^H  Comhaltas  gu  ceud.' 

'  Kinship  to  the  twentieth, 
Fostership  to  the  hundredth  (degree).' 

There  is  not  a  Highlander  in  Scotland  but  claims  kinship 
or  fostership  with  his  chief,  nor  a  chief  in  Scotland  but 
claims  kinship  or  fostership  with  kings  of  Scotland,  from 
Pictish  kings  downwards.  These  facts  are  not  known  or 
understood  by  Lowland  and  English  writers,  but  they  had 
untold  influence  upon  Highlanders,  as  Highlanders  know. 

John   Campbell,    first   Duke   of   Argyll,^  is   known   to 

*  The  following  anecdote  shows  the  character  of  this  Duke.  When  he  commanded 
^the  British  army  in  France,  a  soldier  came  up,  and  saluting  him,  poHtcly  said,  *  By 
your  leave.  General  Duke,  I  see  gloom  upon  you.j  'Were  you  in  my  place  there 
would  be  gloom  upon  you.'  '  By  your  leave.  General,  what  troubles  you  ? '  '  The 
French  are  upon  us  and  we  have  no  lead.'  '  By  your  leaVe,  General,  do  you  see  that 
^  church  over  the  way  ? '  *  Yes,  what  of  that  V  'By  your  leave,  General,  the  roof 
is  of  lead.'  '  What  is  your  name  ? '  *  John  Campbell,  by  your  leave,  General.'  *  Who 
are  your  people  and  where  are  you  from ? '  'I  have  no  people.  I  am  the  son  of 
tinkers  arid  I  was  born  in  the  cleft  of  a  rock  upon  the  side  of  Lochfine'  [Loch 
Awe ?]  'Stand  here  till  I  come,'  said  the  Duke.  Presently  the  Duke  came  out  of 
his  tent  and  handed  a  captain's  commission  to  John  Campbell,  and  told  him  to  go 
and  get  a  captain's  uniform  and  to  take  his  place  as  captain  in  his  regiment. 

The  church  indicated  was  promptly  stripped  of  its  lead  a"ud  the  lead  converted 
into  bullets,  with  which  the  British  met  the  French  army  and  defeated  them — with 
'  their  own  lead  ! 

John  Campbell  came  back  the  following  day  and  tendered  his  commission  to  the 
Duke.  'Why  this?'  demanded  the  Duke.  'By  your  leave.  General,  the  officers 
avoid  me,  and  the  men  laugh  at  me,  and  I  would  rather  be  as  I  was.'  '  Meet  me  to- 
morrow morning  in  front  of  the  army.  Captain  Campbell.'  The  Duke  commanded 
the  army  to  appear  in  full-dress  parade  on  the  morrow.  The  Duke  was  there  and 
John  Campbell  was  there.  The  Duke  placed  his  arm  under  the  arm  of  John  Camp- 
bell and  walked-up  and  down  with  him  in  front  of  the  army.  '  Go  now,  Captain 
Campbell,  and  take  your  place  in  your  regiment,'  said  the  Duke. 

The  Duke  called  his  ofl&cers  to  him  and  reproved  them,  saying,  '  I  called  you  to  a 
council  yesterday  and  asked  your  help  out  of  our  perilous  position.  "None  of  you 
suggested  a  wtiy.  Captain  John  Campbell  has  done  so.  Through  his  ability  we  will 
now  go  forward  and  meet  the  French.  John  Campbell  has  saved  the  British  army 
and  he  has  saved  you  and  me.  Pride  is  good  in  its  time  and  in  its  proper  place,  but 
an  observant  eye  and  a  practical  brain  are  better  in  time  of  difl&cultj|;.  Let  ^le  see 
that  you  behave  as  gentlenien  to  Captain  John  Campbell.'  After  that  John  Camp- 
bell, the  tinker  officer,  was  the  most  popular  man  in  the  army. 


280  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 


I. 


Highlanders  as  Ian  Ruadh  nan  cath — Red  John  of  the 
Battles.  He  was  the  greatest  general,  the  greatest 
statesman,  and  the  greatest  orator  of  his  time,  equally 
great  in  peace  and  in  war.     It  was  of  him  that  Pope 

said : — 

*  The  great  Argyll,  whose  name  is  known  to  wield 
And  shake  alike  the  senate  and  the  field.' 

It  is  said  that  Argyll  offered  to  place  the  crown  upon  the 
heaxf  of  James  vn.,  if  James  would  enter  the  church  of 
St.  Michael  in  Scone  with  him.  James  declined  to  enter 
the  Protestant  church.  *  Mur  a  teid  thus  a  steach  leamsa 
dha'n  eaglais  cha  teid  an  crun  air  do  cheannsa  am  feadh 
a  bhitheas  an  ceann  ruadh  seo  air  an  amhaich  riabhaich 
agamsa.'  '  If  thou  wilt  not  go  with  me  into  the  church 
the  crown  will  not  go  upon  thy  head  while  this  red  head  is 
upon  this  brindled  neck  of  mine,'  said  Argyll. 

The  result  was  the  battle  of  Sheriff muir  in  1715.  The 
Dufee  of  Argyll  commanded  the  Hanoverian  and  the  Earl 
of  Mar  the  Stuart  army.  There  were  many  Highlanders  on 
both  sides.  They  composed  the  right  wing  of  each  army 
and  fought  with  their  wonted  bravery,  defeating  their 
immediate  opponents  and  turning  both  armies  round  upon 
one  another  like  a  wheel  turning  round  in  a  circle. 

Many  men  fell  upon  both  sides.  One  of  the  most 
lamented  was  Allan  Macdonald,  chief  of  Clanrai^ald.  He 
was  known  among  his  own  people  as  '  Ailean  beag  a  chridhe 
mhoir,'  *  little  Allan  of  the  big  heart.'  AUan  Macdonald 
was  not  little,  however,  but  his  breadth  seemed  to  take 
away  from  his  height.  He  was  strong,  active,  and  brave, 
and  beloved  by  his  people.  When  he  fell  his  men  crowded 
round  him  bewailing  their^^beloved  chief.  His  kinsman, 
young  Macdonald  of  Glengarry,  called  out,  '  Buillean  am 
diugh,  tuiream  am  maireach  a  Chlann-dom]^nuill,'  'Blows 
to-day,  tears  to-morrow,  Clandonald ! '  Tnias  roused  the 
Macdonalds  fell  upon  their  opponents  with  redoubled  fury, 
cutting  them  down  as  they  fled  before  them. 

Sir  Walter  Scott  mentions  that  in  passing  the  prostrate 


y 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  JACOBITE  EISINGS     281 


body  of  Clanranald  a  gentleman  asked  who  he  was.  *Bu 
duine  an  de  e,'  '  He  was  a  man  yesterday,'  answered  his 
servant. 

On'  the  day  Clanranald  fell  at  Sheriffmuir  his  house 
at  Or}i\aeleit  was  burnt  to  the  ground.  Venison  was 
^eing  cooked  in  the  kitchen  when  the  chimney  took  fire 
gkid  the  fire  reduced  the  house  of  Ormacleit  to  ashes.  Deer 
■were  in  South  Uist  then:  the^  are  none  now.  ';^e  deer  and 
the  people  of  Benmore  ha  ^ei       'Aovc      i/hen  the  hillF> 

of  the  deer  and  the  croits  of  the  nati ve3  were  converted  into 
tacks  for  the  strangers. 

Ormacleit  House  ^as  designed  by  a  French  architect, 
built  by  French  masons,  and  the  freestone  used  in  the 
building  was  brought  from  France.  Clanranald  was  married 
to  a  Penelope  Mackenzie,  daughter  of  Alexander  Mackenzie, 
Governor  of  Tangiers,  under  the  French  Government. 

Ormacleit  House  was  seven  years  in  building  and  was 
seveh  years  in  occupation.  It  is  situated  upon  a  ridge 
immediately  above  the  machair  or  plain.  The  high- 
pointed,  isolated  gables  of  the  ruins  are  siiigularly  quaint 
and  picturesque  in  the  far-reaching  landscape. 

Immediately  before  leaving  to  join  the  Earl  of  Mar, 
Clanranald  burnt  down  his  house  of  Caisteal  Tioram  to 
prevent  it  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  Campbells  who 
were  opposed  to  Mar.  Both  Caisteal  Tioram  and  Caisteal 
Ormacleit  stand  stately  and  picturesque  ruins  of  their  ruined 
chiefs.  Ormacleit  Castle  in  Uist  was  the  insular  home; 
Castle  Tioram  in  Moideart  was  the  mainland  home  of  the 
Macdonalds  of  Clanranald.  Alas  !  no  house,  no  home,  no 
land  in  their  native  country  is  theirs  to-day. 

'  Landless  !  landless !  landless !  Clanranalds ! ' 

It  is  said  that  Clanranald  fell  by  the  hand  of  one  of  his 
own  men.  Clanranald  "Commanded  all  his  men  to  follow 
him  to  the  wars.  Among  others  he  commanded  the  son  of 
a  widow  at  Staonabrig  to  follow  him.  The  mother  of  the 
youth  appcciled  to  Clanranald  not  to  take  her  son,  her  only 


282  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

son,  and  she  a  widow.  Clanranald  was  obdurate,  however. 
'  If  you  wiU  take  my  son  from  me,'  said  the  sorrowing 
woman,  '  I  will  make  you  rue  the  day  you  were  born. 
They  call  you  little  Allan  of  the  big  heart.  I  call  you  little 
Allan  of  the  hard  heart.' 

Clanranald  and  his  men  left  Ormacleit  in  high  glee,  with 
pipers  playing  and  with  banners  flying  and  with  cheers  long 
and  loud.  But  the  words  of  the  widow  woman  were 
dminous  to  Clanranald,  still  ringing  in  his  ears,  still  rankhng 
in  his  heart.  Before  going  into  his  galley  at  Loch  Aoineart 
he  entered  the  house  of  a  woman  and  asked  her  to 
put  a  charm  upon  him.  The  woman  did  so,  arid  put 
upon  him : — 

'  Sian  romh  shkighead  shiodhach 
Sian  romh  ghath  shluaghach 
Sian  romh  luaidh  shaoghlach* 
Sian  abheatha  bhorcach  bhuan 
Romh  shluagh  agus  romh  bhaogha.' 

*  Charm  against  dart  of  fairies, 
Charm  against  spear  of  hosts, 
Charm  against  lead  of  men, 
The  charm  of  the  sprouting  lasting  life 
Against  men,  against  mishap.' 

-^ 
But  the  widow  had  baked  two  bannocks — a  big  bannock 
and  a  little  bannock — and  she  asked  her  son  which  he  would 
have — the  big  bannock  with  her  malison  or  the  little  ban- 
nock with  her  blessing.  The  son  said  that  he  would  have 
the  little  bannock  with  her  blessing.  '  Here  are  the  two,' 
said  the  woman.  '  The  little  bannock  with  the  blessing  of 
thy  mother  for  hindering  little  Allan  of  the  cold  heart  from 
ever  breaking  the  heart  of  a  widow  again,  and  the  bi^ 
bannock  with  thy  mother's  malison  if  thou  alio  west  little 
Allan  of  the  bold  heart  ever  again  to  return  to  Uist.  And 
may  thine  eye  never  behold  the  countenance  of  the  lovely 
Mary  of  Grace  the  Mother  of  the  Christ  of  the  Pash,  if  thou 
deceivest  thine  own  mother,  my  son.     Here  to  thee  is  a 


MR.  A.  W.  MOORE,  M.A.,  C.V.O.  283 

^crooked  silver  sixpence  with  which  to  bring  down  the  bold 
Allan  of  the  proud  heart.'  And  with  that  the  mother  gave 
her  son  a  crooked  silver  sixpence  with  which  to  execute 
her  wish^and  to  fulfil  his  promise.  The  son  did  not  forget 
his  mother's  wish,  nor  his  own  promise.  In  the  heat  of 
battle  the  son  of  the  widow  of  Staonabrig  put  his  crooked 
silver  sixpence  given  him  by  his  mother  in  his  musket  and 
shot  to  the  heart  Allan  Macdonald,  Chief  of  Clanranald. 

(To  he  continued,) 


MR.  A.  W.  MOORE,  M.A.,  C.V.O. 

.  On  the  first  day  of  the  old  Celtic  year,  November  12,  there 
f  /passed  away  a  truly  representative  Manx  gentleman. 
Speaker  Arthur  W/lliam  Moore  had  devoted  all  the  energies 
of  his  many-sided  life  and  character  to  the  island  of  his 
birth,  and  the  reality  of  the  grief  which  his  loss  has  called 
forth  among  all  classes  of  his  countrymen  shows  their  sense 
of  the  fact  that  he  was  no  ordinary  man.  In  him  the  Celtic 
versatility  expressed  itself  in  action,  the  Celtic  gifts  of  sym- 
pathy and  tactfulness  were  combined  with  a  spirit  of  justice 
and  sincerity,  and  to  the  seeing  eye  was  added  '  the  infinite 
for  taking  pains.'  Those  who  saw  most  of  him  know  best 
how  unfailingly  genial  and  courteous  he  was,  though 
failing  health  must  latterly  have  tried  him  much— but  he 
had  that  high  courage  which  rises  above  circumstances,  and 
he  fulfilled  his  many  duties  to  the  last.  It  was  only  a  month 
before  his  death  that  he  was  present  at  a  sitting  of  the 
House  of  Keys. 

Mr.  Arthur  Moore  came  of  a  well-known  Manx  family, 
being  the  son  of  Mr.  William  Fine  Moore,  J.P.,  Cronkbourne, 
^he  able  owner  and  controller  of  the  Tromode  Sail-cloth  Mills 
and  a  member  of  the  seK-elected  House  of  Keys.  Mr. 
Moore  was  educated  at  Rugby  under  Dr.  Temple,  and  at 
Trinity,  Cambridge,  where  he  was  bracketed  first  in  the 


284  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

History  Tripos  and  got  his  '  Rugger  Blue.'  The  rest  of 
his  career  was  given  to  Manx,  and  his  activities  seem 
to  have  put  him  in  touch  with  every  phase  of  the  island 

me.  I 

/  He  succeeded  his  father  as  head  of  the  sail-cloth  firm, 
Vhicn  he  managed  with  great  success  until  the  competition 
oi  the  steamship  destroyed  the  business.  In  1881  he  was 
fleeted  member  of  the  House  of  Keys  for  Middle  Sheading, 
fthd  in  1898  he  became  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Keys, 
which  position  he  held  until  his  death.  It  is  seldom  that 
one  man  has  filled  so  many  ofl&ces,  treating  none  a^  a 
,  sinecure  and  disinterestedly  giving  the  best  of  his  energies 
to  each.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Council  of  Education  for 
the  Isle  of  Man,  a  member  of  the  Harbour  Board,  Deputy 
Receiver-General,  leading  meteorologist  of  the  island,  an 
admirable  magistrate,  and,  as  director  of  public  companies, 
he  also  did  much  for  his  country  ;  besides  actively  concern- 
ing himself  this  way  b^  was  a  f  or.  idcr  of  the  Manx  I.angua^^e 
Society  ir  899,  and  its  first  president,  and  was  also  one  of 
its  j  udges  /or  Manx  music ;  he  will  be  remembered  too  as  a 
vice-president  of  the  Celtic  Association  ;  all  this  in  addition 
to  his  literary  work,  by  which  he  will  perhaps  be  best 
remembered,  at  least  by  the  world  at  large.  At  the  Eistedd- 
fod held  at  Cardiff  in  1899  the  degree  of  Druid  was  con- 
f(  >^ed  upon  him  in  recognition  of  his  splend[id  services  to 
M.mx  literature. 

Though  official  translator  of  the  Acts  of  Tynewald  into 
^  i^nx  at  the  time  of  his  death,  he  did  not  learn  the  Manx 
hrguage  until  in  his  early  manhood  and  at  a  time  when  it 
w  s  despised  by  his  class.  He  himself,  in  his  introduction 
to  Manx  Ballads  and  Music  (1896),  writes  of  'the  entire 
indifference,  generally  speaking,  of  educated  Manx  people 
1  »  their  native^  tongue  and  national  legends  ...  as  regards 
tla^i  century  a  matter  of  common  notoriety.'  What  he  has 
ne  for  the  language  by  his  writings  and  his  personal 
influence  it  is  impossible  to  estimate  ;  a  glance  at  a  list  of  his 
\  orks  (see  Appendix)  will  give  some  idea  of  it.     The  aim  of 


MR.  A.  W.  MOORE,  M.A.,  C.V.O.  285 

his  work  is  also  well  expressed  in  his  above-mentioned 
preface  to  the  Manx  Ballads  and  Music,  '  This  publica- 
tion,' he  says,  '  as  <3f  that  of  the  Manx  Carols,  is  to  collect  in 
one  volume  a  curious  literature,  the  greater  part  of  which 
was  threatened  with  almost  certain  loss.  For  less  than  one 
half  of  the  ballads  and  songs  given  here  have  been  hitherto 
published  .  .  .  and  they  could  only  have  been  accessible 
to  very  few.  The  others  have  been  collected  from  various 
sources,  some  oral,  some  written,  which  in  a  few  years 
would  have  yielded  much  smaller  results,  because  the  old 
and  elderly  people  who  alone  remember  them  must  soon 
pass  away  and  because  of  the  risk  of  the  MSS.  being  lost7 
iHis  Folklore  of  the  Isle  of  Man,  Further  Notes  on  Manx 
Folklore,  Manx  Ballads  and  Music,  Manx  Carols,  and  the 
Manx  Notebook,  which  he  edited,  contain  the  result  of  his 
labours  for  the  conservation  of  the  music,  lore,  and  tradition 
of  the  island.  He  also  edited,  assisted  by  Professor  Rhys, 
The  Book  of  Common  Prayer  in  Manx  Gaelic,  the  earliest  and 
longest  MS.  in  the  language,  by  the  publication  of  which 
the  Manx  Society,  in  the  words  of  Professor  Rhys,  '  laid 
Celtic  scholars  under  a  lasting  obliganon.'  Mr.  Moore's 
part  in  the  work  was  that  of  transcribing  the  MS.  for  the 
Press,  and  collating  the  printed  copy  with  the  original. 
Amongst  his  many  other  publications  is  his  importsint  History 
of  the  Isle  of  Man,  which  is,  of  course,  the  one  authoritative 
book  on  the  subject.  His  last  published  article  appeared  in 
the  October  number  of  the  Celtic  Review,  and  dealt  with  the 
connection  of  Ireland  with  the  Isle  of  Man.  His  last  paper 
in  the  Manx  Quarterly  (May  1909)  was  on  '  The  November- 
May  Year  in  Man.'  At  the  time  of  his  death  he  was  con- 
templating the  publication  of  a  book  on  Anglo-Manx  dialect. 
The  book  was  to  consist  of  a  vocabulary  which  was  to  form 
an  appendix  to  be  divided  under  four  headings : — 

1.  Words  of  English  origin  found  both  in  the  Isle  of 

Man  and  elsewhere. 

2.  Words  of  English  origin  whose  use  seems  to  be 

peculiar  to  the  Isle  of  Man.  ^ 


286  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

3.  Words  of  English  origin  whose  spelling  appears  to 

be  peculiar  to  the  Isle  of  Man. 

4.  Manx  Gaelic  words. 

Mr.  Moore  had  almost  completed  the  appendix  in  which  the 
words  are  illustrated  by  quotations  from  T.  E.  Brown  or 
from  other  dialect  writers  or  else  from  coUoquial  speech. 
The  text  of  the  book  was  to  have  comprehended  chapters 
on  the  origins  of  Anglo-Manx,  Manx  characteristics  as 
illustrated  by  their  words  and  phrases,  an  account  of  the 
verb  and  adverb,  etc.  But  of  this  part  of  the  book  nothing 
seems  to  have  been  written.  The  pen  of  the  writer  was  stayed 
by  the  Master's  hand. 

An  old  Manxman,  on  hearing  of  the  death  of  the  Speaker, 
said,  '  The  band  is  off  the  sheaf,'  and  this  is  in  every  sense 
true  of  things  Manx.  The  words  of  his  great  fellow-country- 
man might  most  fittingly  have  been  put  into  his  mouth  : 

*  Of  ancient  heritage — 
Of  manners,  speech,  of  humours,  polity, 
The  limited  horizon  of  our  stage — 
Old  love,  hope,  fear, 
All  this  I  fain  would  fix  upon  the  page. 
That  so  the  coming  age. 

Lost  in  the  empire's  mass, 
Yet  haply  longing  for  their  fathers,  here 

May  see,  as  in  a  glass, 
What  they  held  dear — ' 

S.  M. 


List  of  Publications 

1885-7.  The  Manx  Notebook. 

1889.  The  Climate  of  the  Isle  of  Man. 

1890.  The  Surnames  and  Place-names  of  the  Isle  of  Man. 

1891.  Folklore  of  the  Isle  of  Man. 

1891.  Carvalyn  Gailckagh  (Manx  Carols). 

1893.  Book  of  fcommon  Prayer  in  Manx  Gaelic.     (2  vols.) 

1893.  Account  of  the  Diocese  of  Sodor  and  Man. 

1895.  Further  Notes  on  Manx  Folklore. 

1896.  Manx  Ballads  and  Music. 

1898.  Letters  of  Lieutenant  Edward  Christian. 


PAN-CELTIC  NOTES  287 

1900.  A  History  of  the  Isle  of  Man.     (2  vols.) 

1901.  Manx  Worthies. 

1902.  Story  of  the  Isle  of  JMan. 

1903.  Letters  of  Bishop  Hildesley. 

1904.  Douglas  a  Hundred  Years  Ago. 

1904.  Historical  Account  of  the  Isle  of  Man  Steam  Packet  Company. 

1905.  Notes  and  Documents  from  the  Records  of  the  Isle  of  Man. 

1906.  Extracts  from  the  Journals  of  the  Self-Elected  House  of  Keys. 

He  also  sent  frequent  contributions  to  Yn  Lioar  Mannin- 
agh,  Manx  Quarterly,  Scottish  Historical  Review,  The  Anti- 
quary, Folklore,  Quarterly  Journal  of  the  Royal  Meteorological 
Society,  and  other  periodicals. 


PAN-CELTIC  NOTES 

The  following  circular  has  been  issued : — 

COMMITTEE  FOR  THE  PROMOTION  OF  CELTIC 
STUDIES  IN  LONDON 

January  10th,  1910. 
Dear  Sir  or  Madam, — On  behalf  of  the  Committee  for  the  Promotion  of 
Celtic  Studies  in  London,  I  beg  leave  to  call  your  attention  to  the  progress 
that  has  been  made. 

A  second  Course  of  Lectures  (provided  through  the  generosity  of  the 
same  anonymous  benefactor  as  before)  was  delivered  last  term  by  Professor 
Kuno  Meyer,  and  was  received  with  no  less  enthusiasm  and  appreciation 
than  the  Course  delivered  in  the  previous  session. 

Celtic  Studies  have  been  introduced  by  the  Senate  of  the  University  of 
London  so  as  to  form  a  branch  qualifying  for  the  Master  of  Arts  Degree. 

The  Misses  Stokes  have  just  presented  to  University  College,  London, 
the  library  of  their  late  father.  Dr.  Whitley  Stokes,  which  forms  a  unique 
collection  of  books  connected  with  Celtic  languages  and  literatures. 

What  is  now  needed  is  an  endowment  fund  for  the  purpose  of  providing 
teachers.  It  is  believed  that  if  teaching  were  once  started  on  a  satisfactory 
basis,  the  need  for  it  would  produce  the  permanent  endowment  required. 
In  the  absence,  therefore,  of  a  permanent  endowment  fund,  those  who  are 
interested  in  this  matter  aje  invited  to  fill  up  the  enclosed  form  with  a  view 
to  providing  sufficient  funds  to  start  Celtic  Teaching  and  to  continue  it  for 
at  least  four  years. — I  am.  Yours  faithfully, 

(Signed)    ROBERT  PRIEBSCH. 


288  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

Among  the  list  of  appointments  to  the  professorial  staflf  of  the  new  National 
University  of  Ireland  we  notice  four  dealing  with  Celtic  literature  and 
antiquities,  with  salaries  aggregating  £2400  a  year.  Mr.  R.  A.  Stewart 
Macalister  is  appointed  to  the  Chair  of  Celtic  Archasology,  mainly  no  doubt 
on  the  strength  of  his  Studies  in  Irish  Epigraphy.  Mr.  John  MacNeill,  a  Vice- 
President  of  the  Gaelic  League,  becomes  Professor  of  Early  and  Medieval 
Irish  History.  Mr.  MacNeill  has  for  some  time  been  working  on  this 
subject,  and  has  published  studies  pointing  to  the  necessity  for  a  drastic 
reconstruction  of  the  traditional  views  about  the  Milesian  invasion  and 
settlement  of  Ireland.  Dr.  Osborn  Bergin  becomes  Professor  of  Early  Irish 
Language  and  Literature.  Dr.  Bergin  is  a  native  Gaelic  speaker  who  has 
been  trained  on  the  Continent  in  the  principles  of  Celtic  philology,  and  no 
one  could  do  more  credit  to  the  important  post  committed  to  him.  For  the 
Professorship  of  Modern  Irish,  Dr.  Douglas  Hyde  was  the  obvious  choice, 
and  every  student  and  lover  of  the  subject  will  rejoice  that  his  unrivalled 
qualifications  for  this  post  have  been  recognised. 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  stated  that  a  movement  is  on  foot  for  the 
establishment  of  a  Chair  of  Celtic  in  University  College.  The  great  success 
of  Professor  Kuno  Meyer  in  his  two  courses  of  Lectures  in  the  close  of  the 
years  1908  and  1909,  delivered  before  large  Irish,  Welsh,  and  Scottish 
audiences  in  the  University,  points  to  him  as  its  most  suitable  occupant 
now  that  Whitley  Stokes  has  passed  away.  His  fine  Irish  library,  bequeathed 
to  University  College,  will,  however,  keep  all  Celts  in  grateful  memory  of 
that  famous  Celtic  scholar. 

The  Irish  Book  Lover.— We  have  before  us  the  fifth  number  of  The  Irish 
Book  Lover  J  a  monthly  journal  of  Irish  Bibliography  excellently  edited  by 
Dr.  Crom.  and  purchasable  at  the  price  of  2s.  per  annum. 

It  contains  columns  of  books  wanted,  books  for  sale  or  exchange,  chats 
on  Irish  books  and  authors,  reviews,  notices  of  the  meetings  of  Literary 
Societies,  correspondence,  queries  and  replies.  Altogether  it  is  a  most 
valuable  little  periodical,  and  should  be  on  the  table  of  every  book-loving 
Irishman. 

KEPLY 

Mr.  Niall  Campbell's  note  in  the  October  1909  issue  of  the  Celtic  Review 
is  interesting  and  informative.  It  seems,  however,  probable  that  the  name 
Mac-an-leigh  (Livingstone)  originated  in  two  ways,  i.e.  Mac  an  leigh.  Son  of 
the  Physician,  of  which  the  equivalent  is  to  be  found  in  the  Manx  Clegg  or 
Legge ;  and  Mac-Dhun-sleibh  corresponding  to  the  Irish  Donlevy. 

The  late  Dr.  Alexander  Macbain  gives  much  information  regarding 
Livingstones  in  his  papers  on  Gaelic  Fersondl  Names  and  Etymological  Dictionary. 

It  would  be  a  most  natural  thing  to  have  such  a  name  as  '  son  of  the 
physician '  in  Gaelic. 

I  may  mention  that  besides  Eilean  an  t-Sagairt  in  Lochanan  Dubh  there  is 
Eilean  an  t-Sagairt  in  Loch  Etive  near  Achnacloich,  so  that  two  islands  oi^fte 
same  name  are  in  the  same  neighbourhood.       Alexander  Carmichael. 


THE    CELTIC    REVIEW 

APRIL  15,  1910 

LANDAVENSIUM  OEDO  CHARTARUM.— III. 

Alfked  Anscombe 

In  this  instalment  the  analysis  of  the  lists  of  witnesses  to 
grants  madeAo  Bishop  Berthwyn  is  completed.  These 
grants  number  twenty-three  in  all.  Bishop  Trychan  suc- 
ceeded, and  thirteen  grants  made  to  him  are  on  record. 
Bishops  Gwyddleu  and  Heddylfyw  follow,  but  only  two 
additions  to  the  temporalities  are  recorded  in  their  times. 
Bishop  Grecielis  comes  next,  and  two  out  of  the  seven 
grants  he  received  are  dealt  with.  The  remaining  five  will 
be  treated  in  the  next  and  final  instalment  of  this  series, 
and  also  those  made  to  Bishops  Cerennhir  and  Cadwared. 

After  Cadwared  there  is  a  long  interval  of  more  than 
two  centuries  without  any  notice  whatever  in  the  Book  of 
Landaff.  This  interval  is  not  closed  till  we  come  to  Pater, 
who  was  bishop  in  a.d.  955,  Indiction  xiii.,  in  the  reign  of 
Neuwy  son  of  Gwriad.  It  is  probable  that  Bishop  Cad- 
wared may  have  survived  into  the  eighth  century. 

Scribal  errors  and  misreadings  become  more  frequent 
as  we  advance.  Among  the  more  glaring  are  danoc  abbas 
Ilduti  (No.  LIIL),  which  yields  n:  :  g  and  c  :  :  n,  for  'Dagon' ; 
gundon  for  '  Gurdoc,'  with  n:  :  r  and  on :  :  oc,  in  No.  LI.  ; 
cobreigen  for  '  Cobreiden  '  with  g  :  :  d,  in  No.  LXXI ;  con- 
gant  for  '  Conguaret '  with  n\  :  r/m.  No.  LXXVI. ;  loguonaul 
for  '  loguonaul,'  ^.e.  Juvenal,  with  long  i  misread  Z,  in  Nos. 
LXXXIIL,  LXXXIV. 

The  variations  in  spelling  are  important  for  the  phono- 
logist,  especially  as  regards  e,  o,  and  g.  The  occasionally 
evanescent  nature  of  the  voiced  guttural  is  indicated  by  the 
equivalents  Conhae:  Conhage  (Nos.  LIV.,  LXV.),  and  by 
the  strengthening  the  final  syllable,  -ig,  received  by  the  in- 
fixing of  c,  as  in  '  Ercicg,'  '  Gliwissicg.'  The  tendency  to 
misread  this  c  as  7i  has  led  to  much  speculation  about 
Cymric  patronymics  in  -ing.  The  wavering  between  a  and  o 
is  noteworthy,  as  in  canguaret,  conguaret,  congiwret. 

VOL.  VI.  T 


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TRICHAN 

iv.  conuoe 

ii.  guorcaed 

Hi.  Eli 

V.  dilluc  1 

LXXI. 
Tirchan us 

* 

■       •       • 
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caruani 
uallis 

Saturn  ab. 
docguinni 

Guorhaual 
ab.  Uduti 

LXX. 
Trichanus 
ii.  catguoret 
Hi.  cobreigen 

LXIX. 

TiROHANUS 

ii.  catguoret 
Hi.  cobreidan 

vii.  iauan 

iv.  deuui 

V.  guorhaual 
ix.  guorhaboe 
viii.  seitir 
X.  hilin 
xi.  guarlonir  1 

vi.  cossoc 

LXVIII. 

it,  ca^uoret 
Hi.  cobreiden 

Tricanus 
episcopus 

vi.  iauan 

X.  cain  | 
iv.  deui 

V.  gurhaual 

vii.  gurpoi 

viii.  seitir 

ix.  trecor  | 

cum  tribus 
abbatibus 

Sulgeno  ab. 
caruani 
uallis 

Saturno  ab. 
docunni 

gurhaual  ab. 
Uduti 

LXVII. 

BBRTHGUINUS 

ii.  guoruodul 
Hi.  tutnerth  | 
iv.  etelic       1 
V.  condiuiu  1 
vi.  iudne       | 

LXVI. 

BBRTHGUINUS 

ii.  guruodu 
Hi.  tutnerth 
iv.  etelic 
V.  candau 
vi.  iudonai 

LXV. 

BBRTHGUINUS 

iv.  Samuel  | 
ii.  turchan 

Hi.  confur 
vi.  morhep  | 

V.  deui 

LXIV. 

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ii.  morheb  ab. 
podii  deui 

Hi.  daniel  | 

iv.  elhauaid  | 
V.  gurcu  1 

LXIIL 

BBRTHGUINUS 

Hi.  conguaruil 
iv.  turchan 

ii.  confur 

LXII. 

BBRTHGUINUS 

iv.  conguaret 

H.  gunnuiu  | 
lector 

Hi.  confur 

LXI. 

BBRTHGUINUS 

Hi.  congaarui 
iv.  tirchan 

u.  ili 

ii.  confur 
presbyter 

vi.  deui 

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296  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

TRACES  OF  THE  NEUTER  GENDER  IN 
MODERN  SCOTTISH  GAELIC 

Professor  Mackinnon 

One  of  the  many  truths  which  the  great  Celtic  Grammarian, 
Zeuss,  was  able  to  establish  was  the  existence  of  the  Neuter 
Grender  in  Celtic  as  in  the  other  Aryan  Languages.  In  the 
old  MSS.  from  which  the  Gaelic  portion  of  the  Grammatica 
Celtica  was  mainly  constructed,  —  the  glossed  copy  of 
Priscian's  Grammar  in  St.  Gall  (Sg.) ;  the  glossed  copy  of  the 
Epistles  of  St.  Paul  in  the  University  of  Wiirzburg  (Wb.);  the 
glossed  copy  of  a  commentary  on  the  Psalms  formerly  in  the 
monastery  of  Bobbio,  founded  by  Columbanus  a  monk  of 
Bangor,  but  now  in  Milan  (Ml.) ;  and  the  Book  of  Armagh 
(B.A.)  in  Dublin — distinctive  Neuter  forms  abound  for  the 
Article,  Noun,  Adjective,  and  Pronoun,  all  of  which  are  duly 
set  forth  for  the  first  time  in  that  monumental  work. 
Succeeding  scholars  have  corrected  and  extended  in  minor 
details  the  examples  adduced  by  the  illustrious  master,  but 
the  existence  of  the  Neuter  in  Celtic,  and  especially  in  the 
Gaelic  dialects,  is  now  an  axiom  with  Gaelic  grammarians. 
These  Neuter  forms  have  now  all  but  disappeared  from 
the  modern  Gaelic  tongues,  but,  as  is  always  the  case,  they 
have  left  interesting  traces  behind  them  in  the  dialects 
of  to-day  which  we  are  so  far  able  to  explain  by  the  light 
which  the  old  writings  of  the  language  throw  on  the  Neuter 
Gender. 

In  Celtic,  as  in  the  Classical  tongues.  Grammatical 
Gender  was  originally  no  doubt  based  upon  sex.  But  very 
early  certain  Noun-stems  came  to  be  regarded,  gram- 
matically, as  Masculine  or  Feminine,  although,  in  meaning, 
the  noims  themselves  could  not  be  spoken  of  as  Male  or 
Female.  Such  was  the  case  in  all  the  old  Aryan  tongues, 
and  such  is  the  case  in  many  modern  languages,  as  German, 
e.g,  English  alone  has  been  able  in  a  comprehensive  manner 
to  equate  Grammatical  Gender  with  Nature  and  Sex,  where 


TEACES  OF  THE  NEUTER  GENDEE         297 

the  names  of  Males  are  all  grammatically  Masculine,  the 
names  of  Females  Feminine,  and  all  others  Neuter — that  is 
neither  (Male  nor  Female)  Masculine  nor  Feminine.  The 
fact  that  English  has  no  flexion  of  Article  or  Adjective  has 
no  doubt  greatly  simplified  the  convenient  and  practical 
distribution  of  Grammatical  Gender  in  that  tongue.  The 
Pronoun  as  the  substitute  or  representative  of  the  Noun  has 
alone  to  be  considered. 

In  passing  from  a  language  with  three  Genders  to  one 
which  has  only  two,  considerable  inconveniences  and  fre- 
quent confusion  necessarily  arise.  The  Gael  has  at  first 
a  difficulty  in  correctly  apportioning  many  of  his  '  he's  '  and 
'  she's  '  among  the  English  '  it's,'  while  the  Saxon  is  equally 
at  a  loss  in  properly  distributing  his  '  it's  '  among  the  Gaelic 
and  French  '  he's '  and  '  she's.'  Nor  is  his  task  much 
lightened  in  turning  to  German  where  he  finds  the  lists  of 
Masculine,  Feminine,  and  Neuter  Nouns  so  very  different 
from  his  own. 

In  the  development  of  Grammatical  Gender  it  appears 
that  the  Neuter  came  later  than  the  Masculine  and  Feminine. 
The  Sanskrit  grammarians  called  the  new  class  of  Nouns 
TcUva,  '  eunuch,'  but  the  Latins,  from  whom  the  moderns 
have  so  largely  borrowed  the  technical  terms  of  grammar, 
were  satisfied  with  the  prosaic  neutrum,  '  neither.'  English 
which  had  its  native  word  '  neither '  formed  like  the  Latin 
could  very  easily  have  specialised  its  meaning  in  grammar  to 
neuter, hut  it  evidently  became  the  fashion  early  in  the  history 
of  that  language  to  borrow  from  the  foreigner,  even  when 
there  was  no  need  to  do  so.  According  to  Cormac,  the  old 
lexicographer,  Gaelic  had  two  terms  meaning  neuter — deme 
.i.  cech  neutur  lasin  laitneoir  is  deme  lasin  filid  n-gaedalach, 
'  everything  neuter  with  the  Latinist  is  deme  with  the  Gaelic 
poet '  ;  and  traaeth  .i.  each  nechtraige  7  each  neotur,  *  traaeth 
i.e.  everything  neutral  and  neuter.'  (Three  Irish  Glossaries, 
deme,  traaeth.)  But  the  old  Gaelic  grammarians,  like  the 
English,  preferred  to  borrow  the  Latin  term  than  to  use  the 
native   one.     It   may   be   added   that   the  language   also 


298  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

possessed  a  native  word  for  the  useful  word  'neither,'  formed 
exactly  like  netitrum  and  '  neither,'  but  which  we  have 
allowed  to  fall  into  disuse.  In  old  Gaelic  nechtar  meant '  one 
of  two.'  Later  the  Adjective  nechtar de  was  formed  ;  and  by 
prefixing  neb-,  nemh-  (now  neo-)  to  this  word,  we  formed 
neo-neachtardha,  '  neither.'  Thus  (MS.  iv.  Adv.  Lib.) 
neutrum  .1.  nemhnechtarda  of  which  the  writer  gives  four 
definitions,  the  shortest  being  :  neutrum  est  res  non  sana  non 
egrota  .i.  is  ed  is  nemhnechtarda  ann  red  gan  beth  slan  no 
eslan,  '  what  is  neither  weU  nor  ill.' 

It  is  a  striking  coincidence  that  in  the  Romance  Lan- 
guages, the  descendants  of  Latin,  the  Neuter  Gender  has 
disappeared  as  in  the  Celtic  dialects ;  that  in  both  groups 
interesting  survivals  of  the  old  Neuter  remain  ;  and  further 
that  while  many  Nouns  formerly  Neuter  have  become 
Feminine,  much  the  greater  number  are  now  Masculine. 

Scottish  Gaelic,  unlike  English,  still  declines  the  Article 
and  Adjective.  In  the  modern  language  we  may  say 
generally,  avoiding  details,  that  in  the  case  of  Feminine 
Nouns,  the  Article  causes  the  aspiration  of  the  Noun,  and  the 
Noun  causes  the  aspiration  of  the  Adjective,  in  the  Nomin- 
ative Singular  ;  while  with  Masculine  Nouns  aspiration  does 
not  take  place  :  a'  hhean  mhor,  '  the  big  woman,'  but  am 
fear  mor, '  the  big  man.'  The  former  is  of  course  represented 
by  ^,  the  Fem.  Pers.  Pronoun,  the  latter  by  e  the  Masc.  Pers. 
Pronoun.  We  have  thus  two  tests  to  settle  the  Gender  of  a 
Noun  in  Gaelic,  the  Article  and  Adjective  test,  and  the 
Pronoun  test.  We  shall  find  later  that  there  is  a  group  of 
Nouns  which  are  Masculine  or  Feminine  according  as  one 
gauges  them  by  the  one  test  or  the  other. 

Let  us  now  consider  cases  of  the  survival  of  the  Neuter 
in  Modern  Gaelic,  and  thereafter  treat  of  the  confusion 
which  the  disappearance  of  the  Neuter  has  wrought  in  the 
Grender  of  Gaelic  grammar. 

I.  Take  the  case  of  ed,  now  eadh. 

The  old  grammarians  wrote  the  third  person  Sing,  of  the 
Pers.  Pron.  thus : 


TEACES  OF  THE  NEUTEE  GENDEE         299 

Masc.  e  ;   Fern,  si  ;   Neut.  ed  ; 
with  their  emphatic  forms  : 

Masc.  e  som  ;  Fem.  sisi  ;  Neut.  ed  on. 
When  Neuter  Nouns  came  to  be  classed  as  Masc.  or  Fem. 
the  main  function  of  the  Neuter  Pronoun  ed  became  merged 
in  e  and  sL  Still  the  word  was  not  entirely  dropped.  We 
write  the  simple  form  eadh  and  the  emphatic  form 
eadJion ;  and  we  use  the  former  idiomatically,  with  fringes 
of  its  neuter  vesture  still  clinging  to  it.  Thus  when  one  is 
reciting  verse  or  telling  a  story,  and  when  you  feel  that  he 
merits  approval  you  encourage  him  to  proceed  by  saying 
'5  eadh,  '  it  is,'  '  yes '  ('5  e  would  be  quite  out  of  idiom).  So 
also  in  the  well-known  passage  (Matt.  v.  37) :  'Ach  gu  ma 
h-e  is  cdmhradh  dhuihh  '/S  eadh,  '5  eadh  ;  ni  h-eadh,  ni  h-eadh  : 
oir  ge  Fe  ni  a  hhios  os  cionn  so,  is  ann  o'n  die  a  tha  e\  Here 
Scottish  Gaelic  usage  would  demand  cha^n  eadh  instead  of 
ni  h-eadh,  which  is  the  common  Irish  form,  otherwise  the 
idiom  is  correct.  ^Se  and  cha^n  e  would  be  idiomatically 
wrong.  If  you  wish  to  ask  such  a  question  as  '  Is  he  a  native 
of  Mull  ?  '  e.g.  you  can  do  so  in  one  of  three  forms,  all 
idiomatically  correct :  (1)  An  ann  de  mhuinntir  Mhuile  a 
tha  e  ?  to  which  the  answer  would  be,  'S  ann  or  cha'n  ann  ; 
(2)  An  e  Muileach  a  tha  ann  ?  the  answer  now  being, 
'S  e  or  cha'n  e ;  (3)  Am  Muileach  e  ?  the  proper  reply  to 
which  is,  '  S  eadh  or  cha'n  eadh.  So  where  the  chief  captain 
asked  St.  Paul  (Acts  xxii.  27)  if  he  was  a  Eoman,  the 
question  is  put  in  the  form.  An  Eomanach  thu  ?  and  the 
answer  is  given  idiomatically  correct.  Is  eadh,  not  is  e. 
Similarly  if  I  come  upon  an  animal,  a  dog  or  a  horse,  showing 
temper,  I  turn  and  say  An  eadh  ?  or  in  English,  '  Would 
you  ?  '  From  these  examples  of  the  idiomatic  use  of  eadh 
in  Scottish  Gaelic,  as  also  in  Irish,  it  will  be  seen  that  exidh 
distinguishes  from  e  in  that  the  latter  responds  to  a  person 
or  concrete  individual  thing,  while  the  former  is  concerned 
with  an  idea,  a  concept,  a  predication,  which  in  its  nature 
is  essentially  Neuter — in  fact  eadh  is  in  living  use  as  a 
Neuter  in  Gaelic  right  down  from  Neuter  days. 


300  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

It  may  be  added  that  ed  on,  now  eadhon,  came  in  the  old 
language  to  be  chiefly  used  in  the  sense  of  viz.,  '  namely,' 
'  to  wit,'  etc.,  just  as  the  word  is  mainly  used  now.  Other 
forms  into  which  ed,  eadh,  entered,  such  as  ma's  eadh  (ma 
seadh),  gidheadh,  etc.,  are  in  use  in  the  modern  as  in  the 
old  language,  but  from  the  nature  of  the  case  their  idiomatic 
use  is  not  connected  with  Gender. 

The  case  of  cid,  now  ciod : 

In  the  old  language  the  Interrogative  Pronouns,  ce,  cia, 
were  not  distinguished  in  respect  of  Gender.  But  very  early 
these  were  combined  with  the  Personal  Pron.,  and  distinc- 
tion of  Gender  emerged  :  ce  he,  '  quis  '  ?  ce  si  (cisi)  '  quae  '  ? 
ced,  cid  (ce  ed),  '  quid '  ?  These  distinctions  have  so  far 
remained.  Cisi  has  disappeared,  and  we  now  use  co  for 
quis  ?  and  qitae  ?  indifferently.  We  have  cia  which  is  used 
in  dialect  more  or  less  frequently  for  co  ;  but  ciod  still 
represents  the  old  cid,  '  quid '  ?  '  what '  ?  Ciod  has  in 
construction  taken  the  Pers.  Pron.  e  after  it.  The  stress 
is  upon  the  e,  and  accordingly  ciod  e  has  in  common  speech 
become  gu-de  ?  and  even  de  ?  in  the  sense  of  '  what  ?  ' 

As  between  co  and  ciod,  the  one  referring  to  persons  the 
other  to  things,  no  mistake  is  ever  made  :  Co  tha  thu 
faicinn  ?  '  Whom  are  you  seeing '  ?  Ciod(gU'de,  de)  tha 
thu  cluinntinn  ?  '  What  are  you  hearing  ?  '  But  some 
confusion  emerges  when  the  personal  pronoun  e  or  i,  refer- 
ring to  a  specific  Masc.  or  Fem.  Noun  joins  to  ciod.  We 
have  seen  that  in  popular  speech  e,  but  not  i,  has  attached 
to  ciod  in  the  form  gu-de,  de  for  ciod  e,  but  not  gu-di,  di  for 
ciod  i.  This  is  no  doubt  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Masc.  and 
not  the  Fem.  has  replaced  the  disused  Neuter  ed.  We  say 
de  do  hharail  ?  for  the  literary  ciod  i  do  bharail  ?  '  What  is 
your  opinion  ?  '  as  well  as  de  do  hheachd  for  ciod  e  do  hheachd? 
'  What  is  your  conviction  ?  ' 

It  looks  as  if  it  were  here  we  should  find  the  explanation 
of  such  phrases  as  ciod  e  urnuigh  instead  of  the  form  one 
should  look  for  ciod  i  urnuigh,  seeing  that  urnuigh  is  a  Fem. 
noun.     The   anomaly  did   not  escape   the  notice  of  the 


TEACES  OF  THE  NEUTER  GENDER         301 

capable  Gaelic  Grammarian,  Dr.  Alexander  Stewart,  whose 
shrewd  observations  on  this  point,  as  also  upon  the  proper 
meaning  of  Grammatical  Gender  (v.  Gram.,  ed.  1812,  pp.  42, 
160),  prove  him  to  have  been  an  able  exponent  of  philosophi- 
cal Grammar.  Had  Dr.  Stewart  known  the  old  forms  of 
Gaelic  and  especially  the  disused  Neuter  forms,  he  would 
have  found  in  them  a  simpler  and  more  satisfactory  explana- 
tion of  these  and  other  abstruse  points  in  Gaelic  Grammar 
than  among  the  subtleties  of  scholastic  philosophy. 

II.  The  confusion  which  the  disappearance  of  the 
Neuter  has  caused  in  the  Gender  of  Nouns  in  modern 
Gaelic. 

In  the  fourth  volume  of  the  Todd  Lecture  Series  (Dublin, 
1892),  Father  Hogan  has  printed  an  exhaustive  list  of 
nouns-  which  were  Neuter  in  old  Gaelic.  An  examination 
of  this  list  shows  that,  as  already  stated,  much  the  greater 
number  of  these  have  become  Masculine  in  the  modern 
language,  although  the  number  that  joined  the  Feminine 
is  considerable.  A  few  have  left  behind  them  in  names  and 
phrases  traces  of  their  earlier  grammatical  association. 
We  may  take  a  few  examples  :  Tir,  '  land,'  as  distinct  from 
muir,  '  sea,'  was  of  old  a  Neuter  noun,  although  the  word 
is  now  and  has  been  for  many  generations,  all  over  Gaelic- 
speaking  land,  Feminine.  It  regularly  takes  the  adjective 
attached  to  it  in  the  aspirated  form,  tir  mhor  fharsuing, 
'  a  great  spacious  land,'  and  the  Article  when  prefixed 
to  it  declines  in  the  Feminine,  feadh  na  tire,  '  throughout 
the  land.'  But  an  Islander  stiU  says  tir-mor  (not  tir -mhor) 
when  he  speaks  of  the  mainland  of  Scotland,  and  the  Main- 
lander  says  tir-mor  when  he  speaks  of  the  Continent  of 
Europe.  In  the  same  way  Islander  and  Mainlander  alike 
say  teachd-Siii'tir  (not  teachd-na-tire),  '  yield  of  the  land,' 
'  sustenance,'  '  food.'  The  true  explanation  of  these  and 
similar  phrases  is  that  they  were  formulated  and,  so  to 
speak,  petrified  when  tir  was  still  a  Neuter  noun,  and  sub- 
jected the  Article  and  Adjective  attached  to  it  to  the  forms 
of  the  Neuter. 


302  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Muir, '  sea,'  like  tir,  '  land,'  was  of  old  a  Neuter  noun, 
and  is  now  Feminine.  In  some  localities  muir  still  retains 
some  reminiscences  of  its  old  gender ;  am  muir  is  heard  in 
some  districts  for  a'mhuir  and  muir  mor  instead  of  the 
common  muir  mhor  in  the  Nominative ;  but  on  the  other 
hand  taobh  na  mara,  *  seaside,'  seems  to  be  the  only  form 
in  use  for  the  Genitive.  In  place-names,  however,  Ceann- 
a'-mhara  (Kenmare),  '  end  of  the  sea,'  is  met  with,  a  case 
of  the  Neuter  form  surviving  in  the  Cenitive. 

Trdigh,  '  beach,'  '  ebb,'  is  another  Neuter  noun  which 
has  become  Feminine.  In  the  old  language  there  were 
two  words  denoting  '  beach,'  '  strand,' — tracht  and  traig. 
The  latter  became  Fem.  very  early ;  it  is  marked  so  by 
Professor  Windisch.  The  noun  is  now  commonly  declined  in 
the  dental  declension :  Nom.,  an  trdigh,  Gen.  na  trdghadh. 
In  place-names  the  old  Neuter  form  is  clearly  in  evidence  ; 
Bair 'BJi'trdid,  Dail-sm-trdid,  Ballantrae.  A  beautiful  beach 
of  pale  yellow  sand  is  still  in  Colonsay  An  Trdigh  bdn, 
while  all  the  others  are  trdigh  hhdn  (or  gheal).  (Cf.  the  last 
number  of  this  Review,  p.  245  '  o  Thraigh  Bain  Mhuideart.) 

Inhhear  or  inhhir,  '  river  mouth,'  although  marked 
Masculine  in  Windisch' s  vocabulary,  was  a  Neuter  noun  in 
old  Gaelic.  The  word  retains  its  old  form  and  declension 
in  the  North  Highlands,  as  e.g.  Loch-an-inbhir,  '  Lochinver,' 
in  the  west  of  Sutherland,  but  in  the  southern  Isles  it  has 
become  Feminine,  and  takes  the  guttural  declension  in  the 
Genitive, — Tigh  na  h'in(bh)earach  '  Inverhouse  '  (Jura) ; 
Bodha  na  h-in(bh)earach,  '  Inver  reef  '  (Colonsay). 

In  addition  to  this  group  of  Nouns,  which  might  be 
enlarged,  whose  history  preserves  traces  of  their  fluctuations 
in  Gender,  there  is  a  number  of  quite  common  words  of 
varying  gender  in  Gaelic  dialect,  a  circumstance  which  may 
be  confidently  attributed,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  the 
disappearance  of  the  Neuter  from  the  language.  Such  a 
word  is  muileann,  '  mill,'  a  loan  from  the  Latin  molendinum. 
In  most  districts  this  word  is  Masculine,  but  it  is  Feminine 
in  the  island  of  Lewis  and  elsewhere.     Ugh,   '  egg,'   the 


TRACES  OF  THE  NEUTEH  GENDEE         303 

cognate  of  (or  a  loan  from)  the  Latin  ovum,  though  Mascu- 
line over  the  greater  part  of  the  Scottish  Gaelic  area,  is 
Feminine  in  several  localities.  So  are  teine,  'fire,'  sgeul, 
'  tale,'  ubhall,  '  apple,'  eallach,  '  burden,'  with  many  others, 
all  originally  Neuter,  but  now  Masculine  in  one  district, 
Feminine  in  another. 

In  Gaelic  Grammar  we  reckon  Nouns  as  Masc.  or  Fem. 
according  as  they  take  the  Article  and  Adjective  conjoined 
with  them  in  the  Masc.  or  Fem.  form.  But  when  we  sub- 
stitute a  Pronoun  for  these  Nouns,  the  Fem.  Pron.  some- 
times represents  a  Noun  which  is  by  the  Article  and  Adjec- 
tive test,  grammatically.  Masculine.  Some  of  these  cases 
can  be  explained  in  a  more  or  less  satisfactory  way.  Bata, 
'  boat,'  and  soitheach,  '  vessel,'  are  Masc.  nouns,  i.e.,  they 
take  the  Article  and  Adjective  in  the  Masc.  form  ;  but  they 
are  invariably  represented  by  the  Fem.  Pron.  i,  '  she,'  never 
by  e,  '  he.'  In  this  case  the  explanation  may  be,  probably 
is,  that  in  Gaelic  as  in  English  every  class  of  boat  is  treated 
as  a  '  she,'  a  circumstance  natural  enough  in  Gaelic  from  the 
fact  that  long,  '  ship,'  is  and  always  has  been  Fem.  In 
other  cases  where  the  subject  is  not  a  word  but  a  clause  or 
sentence  the  representing  Pronoun  is  the  Masc.  which  takes 
the  place  of  the  old  Neuter.  Thus  dh'  iih  na  hd  caola  suas 
na  hd  reamhra,  agus  cha'n  aithnichteadh  orra  e,  'The  lean 
cattle  ate  up  the  fat  cattle,  and  it  could  not  be  known  of 
them'  (Gen.  xli.  20).  In  the  case  of  living  beings  Gaelic 
usage  demands  the  pronoun  that  represents  the  Sex  of  the 
Subject  rather  than  the  Gender  of  the  Noun.  In  this 
connection  the  observations  of  Dr.  Stewart  are  so  clear  and 
to  the  point  that  they  are  well  worth  quoting  (Gr,,'p.  158). 

'  The  Personal  and  Possessive  Pronouns  follow  the 
Number  of  their  Antecedents,  i.e.,  of  the  Nouns  which  they 
represent.  Those  of  the  third  Person  Sing,  follow  also  the 
Gender  of  their  Antecedent ;  as.  Sheas  a'  bhean  aig  a 
chosaihh,  agus  thdisich  i  air  am  fliuchadh  le  a  deuraibh,  agus 
thiormaich  i  iad  le  gruaig  a  cinn,  '  The  woman  stood  at  his 
feet,  and  she  began  to  wet  them  with  her  tears,  and  she  wiped 


304  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

them  with  the  hair  of  her  head  '  (St.  Luke  vii.  38).  They 
follow,  however,  not  the  Grender  of  the  Antecedent,  but  the 
Sex  of  the  creature  signified  by  the  Antecedent,  in  those 
words  in  which  Sex  and  Gender  disagree  ;  as,  an  gobhlan- 
gaoithe  mar  an  ceicdn'  do  sholair  nead  dhi  fein,  '  The  swallow, 
too,  hath  provided  a  nest  for  herself '  (Ps.  Ixxxiv.  3). 
Gohhlan-gaoithe,  '  swallow,'  is  a  Masc.  Noun,  as  appears  by 
the  Masc.  Article  ;  but  as  it  is  the  dam  that  is  spoken  of, 
the  reference  is  made  by  the  Pers.  Pron.  to  the  Fem.  Gender. 
Ta  gliocas  air  a  fireanachadh  le  a  cloinn,  '  Wisdom  is  justified 
by  her  children '  (St.  Matt.  xi.  19).  Gliocas  is  a  Masc. 
Noun,  but  as  Wisdom  is  here  personified  as  a  female,  the 
regimen  of  the  Poss.  Pron.  is  adapted  to  that  idea.' 

There  seems  little  doubt  but  that  the  sagacious  author 
has  hit  upon  the  true  explanation  of  the  Gaelic  usage  in  this 
matter,  and  that  thus  we  must  also  explain  the  invariable 
use  of  the  Fem.  Pronoun  to  represent  such  words  as  mart, 
'  a  cow,'  capull,  '  a  mare,'  and  hoirionnach,  '  a  female,' 
'  a  woman,'  with  one  or  two  others  which  are,  grammati- 
cally, Masc.  Nouns. 


THE  SCOTTISH  RACE  AND  KINGDOM 
James  Ferguson 


Two  great  developments  in  the  history  of  Scotland  are 
shrouded  in  mist,  and  present  fascinating  subjects  for 
investigation  and  speculation.  One  is  the  process  by 
which,  in  the  long  period  between  King  Malcolm  Canmore 
and  the  union  of  the  Crowns,  the  Teutonic  overshadowed 
the  original  Celtic  element  in  the  population  of  the  Lowlands 
from  the  Forth  to  the  Findhorn,  and  the  Gaelic  tongue  was 
superseded  by  the  English  speech.  The  other  is  the  earlier 
change  by  which  the  proper  Scots,  whose  original  territory 
was  limited  to  the  county  of  Argyll,  became  supreme  over 


THE  SCOTTISH  RACE  AND  KINGDOM       305 

the  larger,  more  fertile  and  more  populous  provinces  of  the 
Plots,  and  imposed  their  name  in  the  first  place  on  Scotland 
north  of  the  Forth,  ^and  in  the  second  on  the  territory  to 
the  south,  as  far  as  the  Cheviot  range  and  the  Solway 
shore. 

The  story  of  the  times,  in  which  the  earlier  change 
took  place,  is  told  in  two  different  ways.  There  is  the  old 
fabulous  history  of  which  the  most  famous  exponents  are 
Boethius  and  Buchanan,  which  unhesitatingly  deduced 
the  descent  of  the  Scottish  Monarch,  step  by  step  through 
a  hundred  kings,  from  Fergus  i.,  who  lived  330  years  before 
the  birth  of  Christ,  and  which  records  a  complete  exter- 
mination of  the  Picts  by  Kenneth  Macalpin  about  the  year 
850  A.D.  There  is  the  modern  method  based  on  the  still 
older,  more  matter  of  fact,  and  to  some  extent  contem- 
poraneous records  of  the  Irish  annalists,  the  ancient  Books 
of  Wales,  the  Saxon  Chronicle  of  the  Northumbrian  Bede, 
and  the  Norse  Sagas,  which  refuses  to  accept  or  to  record 
anything  that  is  not  found  in  these  original  sources.  It 
has  always  seemed  to  me  that  both  these  methods  are 
inadequate  and,  therefore,  inaccurate,  and  that  the  true 
spirit  in  which  to  write  the  proper  annals  of  a  race  or  country 
is  to  narrate  first  the  actual  historical  facts  established  or 
reasonably  proved,  and  then  to  add  the  traditional  and 
legendary  history,  except  where  it  is  disproved  or  inconsis- 
tent with  ascertained  fact,  for  what  it  is  worth,  stating 
always  the  caution  of  the  old  genealogist,  '  This,  though 
it  has  often  been  said  and  may  be  true,  cannot,  I  believe, 
be  instructed.'  Keeping  this  caution  in  view,  a  further 
distinction  faUs  to  be  drawn  between  the  earlier  mediaeval 
chronicles  prior  to  the  War  of  Independence,  on  which  both 
Fordun  and  Wyntoun  have  based  their  narratives,  and  ihe 
extended  and  ornamented  achievements  of  the  later 
historians,  with  their  multiplicity  of  detail  and  their  moral 
precedents  for  their  own  side  of  the  controversies  of  their 
own  day. 

The  old  Irish  traditions  point  to  at  least  three  different 

VOL.  VI.  u 


306  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

settlements  in  Ireland.  One  was  a  dark  race  of  apparently 
the  same  type  as  the  Silures  found  by  the  Romans  near 
the  Welsh  border,  and  possibly  the  Basques  in  Spain,  and 
the  Lapps.  The  second  was  apparently  a  Celtic  race,  and 
was  probably  represented  by  the  Pictish  population  of 
part  of  Ulster.  The  third  was  the  Scots  or  Sons  of  Miledh, 
said  to  be  descended  from  a  Greek  who  married  Scota, 
the  daughter  of  Pharaoh,  and  who  after  being  settled  in 
the  north  of  Spain  ultimately  invaded  Ireland.  Some  of 
the  legends  point  to  a  common  origin  of  the  Picts  and  Scots, 
and  deduce  both  from  Gaedhel  Glass  the  son  of  Scota.  A 
remarkable  passage  '  from  an  old  book '  quoted  in  the 
preface  to  MTirbis's  Book  of  Genealogies  preserves  the 
physical  characteristics  of  the  three  races  : — 

'  Every  one  who  is  white  of  skin,  brown  of  hair,  bold, 
honourable,  daring,  prosperous,  bountiful  in  the  bestowal 
of  property,  wealth  and  rings,  and  who  is  not  afraid  of 
battle  or  combat,  they  are  the  descendants  of  the  Sons  of 
Miledh  in  Erin.  Every  one  who  is  fair  haired,  vengeful, 
large  ;  and  every  plunderer  ;  every  musical  person  ;  the 
professor  of  musical  and  entertaining  performances ;  who 
are  adepts  in  all  Druidical  and  magical  arts  :  they  are  the 
descendants  of  the  Tuatha  de  Danaan  in  Erin.  Every  one 
who  is  black  haired,  who  is  a  tattler,  guileful,  tale-telling, 
noisy,  contemptible ;  every  wretched,  mean,  strolling, 
unsteady,  harsh  and  inhospitable  person ;  every  slave, 
every  mean  thief,  every  churl,  every  one  who  loves  not  to 
listen  to  music  and  entertainment,  the  disturbers  of  every 
coimcil  and  every  assembly,  and  the  promoters  of  discord 
among  the  people,  these  are  the  descendants  of  the  Firbolg, 
the  Fir  Gailiun  of  Liogairne  and  of  the  Firdomnan  in  Erin. 
But  however  the  descendants  of  the  Firbolgs  are  the  most 
numerous  of  all  these.' 

This  description  points  clearly  to  the  sons  of  Miledh  or 
the  Scots  as  a  ruling  race  of  superior  physical  and  moral 
character,  while  the  characteristics  of  the  Tuatha  de  Danaan, 
have  striking  resemblance  to  these  given  by  the  Roman 


THE  SCOTTISH  RACE  AND  KINGDOM       307 

writers  of  the  Caledonian  Picts,  especially  the  ruddy  hair 
and  huge  limbs  noted  by  Tacitus. 

Both  the  legendary  and  the  historic  Fergus  of  seven 
hundred  years  later  are  deduced  from  the  royal  race  of 
Ireland.  The  first  distinct  historic  reference  to  the  Scots 
is  in  A.D.  360  when  they  attacked  the  Roman  province  of 
Britain  coming  apparently  from  Ireland.  They  appear  at 
intervals  until  the  curtain  f aUs  with  the  withdrawal  of  the 
Roman  legions,  and  when  it  rises  again  the  Scots  are  found 
established  in  Scottish  Dalriada,  the  modern  Argyll.  In 
the  Synchronisms  of  Flann  Mainistrech,  compiled  in  the 
early  part  of  the  eleventh  century,  it  is  stated  that  twenty 
years  after  the  battle  of  Ocha  in  478  the  children  of  Ere 
passed  over  into  Alban,  and  Tighhernac,  who  died  in  1088, 
writes  under  the  year  501 :  '  Fergus  Mor,  son  of  Ere,  held  a 
part  of  Britain  with  the  tribe  of  Dalriada  (Le,  the  Irish 
Dalriada  or  north  of  Ulster)  and  died  there.' 

According  to  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  Fergus  and 
his  brothers  '  went  into  Scotland  to  assist  his  maternal 
grandfather,  Loarn,  who  was  King  of  Dalriada  and  was 
much  oppressed  by  his  enemies  the  Picts,'  and  on  his  death, 
*  being  of  the  Blood  Royal  by  his  mother,'  was  chosen  to 
succeed  him.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  according  to 
an  old  Irish  source,  St.  Patrick,  to  whom  Fergus  had  been 
liberal  in  making  a  grant  of  land,  blessed  him  and  foretold 
that  he  should  be  king  and  his  descendants  rule  over  Alban. 

Although  this  expedition  is  the  foundation  of  the 
Scottish  Kingdom  in  Scotland,  and  Fergus  Mor  of  500  a.d. 
was  the  real  ancestor  of  the  Scottish  kings,  there  must 
have  been  communication  between  Ireland  and  Scotland 
long  before,  and  there  may  have  been  earlier  settlements 
of  a  less  permanent  nature  which  gave  rise  to  the  tradition 
that  Fergus  restored  instead  of  founded  a  race  and  a  dynasty. 
There  was,  however,  a  similar  relation  between  the  Scottish 
and  Irish  Picts.  The  Ossianic  legends  and  the  old  Gaelic 
poems  point  to  a  very  close  connection  at  an  earlier  date, 
and   whether    Fingal,    Diarmid    and    the    other    Ossianic 


308  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

heroes  were  Pictish  or  Scottish  Gaels  theu*  range  in  Scotland 
extended  from  the  western  shores  of  Argyll  to  at  least 
Strathardle  and  Glenshee.  They  were  probably  Picts  of 
the  great  Caledonian  division.  On  the  other  hand  some 
of  the  Highland  Senachies  deduced  the  descent  of  Fergus 
Mor  from  Fergus  son  of  Fingall  and  brother  of  Ossian, — 
Fergus  Mac  Arcaith,  Mhic  Chomgaill,  Mhic  Fhearghuis, 
mhic  FhingaiUy  nam  bimth,  the  Victorious.  The  Scottish 
colony  of  498  consisted  of  the  Cinel  Gabran,  which  occupied 
Cowal  and  Kintyre  to  the  Moss  of  Crinan,  being  the  de- 
scendants of  Gabran  and  Comgall,  the  two  sons  of  Doman- 
gart,  son  of  Fergus ;  of  the  Cinel  Angus,  which  settled  in 
Islay  and  Jura,  the  descendants  of  Fergus's  brother  Angus ; 
and  of  the  Cinel  Lorn,  descendants  of  his  other  brother.  Lorn, 
which  occupied  the  district  from  the  Moss  of  Crinan  to  Loch 
Leven.  The  names  of  Comgall  and  Lorn  are  preserved  in 
the  districts  of  Cowal  and  Lorn.  The  Tract  on  the  Men  of 
Alban  of  the  fourteenth  century  describes  '  the  three 
powerfuls  of  Dalriada '  as  consisting  of  the  Cinel  Gabran  of 
five  hundred  and  threescore  houses,  the  Cinel  Angus  of 
four  hundred  and  thirty  houses,  and  the  Cinel  Lorn  of  four 
hundred  and  twenty  houses,  their  sea  muster  being  in 
each  case  twice  seven  benches  to  each  twenty  houses.  It 
gives  the  armed  muster  of  the  Cinel  Gabran  as  three  hundred 
men,  of  the  Cinel  Angus  five  hundred,  and  of  the  Cinel  Lorn 
seven  hundred  men,  adding  '  but  it  is  of  the  Airgialla  that 
the  seventh  hundred  is.'  The  Airgialla  were  probably  the 
original  inhabitants  of  the  district  of  Mid-Argyll  around 
Loch  Awe,  which  was  practically  enveloped  by  the  three 
tribes,  whose  capital  was  the  fortified  rock  of  Dunadd  in 
the  Moss  of  Crinan. 

Fergus  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Domangart,  and  he 
by  his  son  Comgall.  Comgall  was  succeeded  by  his  brother 
Gabran,  who  was  killed  in  560  by  Brude  Mac-Mailchu,  King 
of  the  Picts.  He  was  succeeded  by  Conall,  son  of  Comgall, 
and  on  Conall's  death,  fourteen  years  later,  the  succession 
passed  by  the  law  of  tanistry  to  the  sons  of  Gabran,  Aidan, 


THE  SCOTTISH  EACE  AND  KINGDOM       309 

the  younger  son,  being  preferred  in  consequence  of  a  vision 
vouchsafed  to  St.  Columba,  who  solemnly  inaugurated  him 
in  lona.  The  connection  between  the  royal  race  and  the 
family  of  lona  was  very  close.  Columba  was  himseK  by 
paternal  descent  a  scion  of  the  parent  Irish  house  of  the 
Hy  Niall,  his  father  Feidlimidh  being  son  of  Fergus  Cenn- 
foda,  son  of  Conall  Gulban,  one  of  the  eight  sons  of  Niall, 
of  the  Nine  Hostages,^  and  being  connected  in  the  female 
line  with  the  kings  of  Dalriada.  According  to  the  old  Irish 
Life  of  Columba,  '  he  was  eligible  to  the  kingship  of  Erin, 
according  to  family,  and  it  was  offered  to  him  if  he  himself 
had  not  abandoned  it  for  God.' 

Drostan,  the  companion  of  Columba  in  his  mission  among 
the  North-Eastern  Picts,  is  described  in  the  Breviary  of 
Aberdeen  as  of  the  royal  race  of  the  Scots.  Leslie  says  that 
he  was  King  Aidan's  uncle  on  the  mother's  side,  and  Major 
describes  him  as  uncle  on  the  mother's  side  of  Eochy,  son 
of  Aidan.  He  is  also  said  in  the  Breviary  to  have  been 
sent  to  his  uncle  St.  Columba,  in  Ireland. 

King  Aidan  attended,  along  with  Columba,  the  Council 
at  Drumceat  in  Ireland  in  375,  when  the  Scottish  Dalriads 
were  freed  from  all  tribute  and  exactions,  but  undertook 

1  While  no  definite  conclusions  can  be  drawn  as  to  the  ancestry  of  Fergus  Mor, 
son  of  Ere,  except  that  he  was  undoubtedly  of  the  Koyal  race  of  the  Scots  in  Ireland, 
it  should  be  noted  that  three  pedigrees  are  given.  One  (O'Hart's,  Irish  Pedigrees, 
Annals  of  the  Four  Masters)  is  the  Irish  one  which  makes  him  the  great-grandson 
of  Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages,  and  describes  him  as  son  of  Muredach,  son  of 
Eoghanan,  son  of  Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages,  one  hundred  and  thirty-first  monarch 
of  Ireland  (378-405),  son  of  Eochy  Muigmedon,  the  one  hundred  and  twenty-sixth 
monarch.  The  second  is  the  early  mediaeval  pedigree,  given  with  slight  variations  in 
the  Tract  on  the  Men  of  Alban,  the  Latin  chronicles  prior  to  1300,  recited  according  to 
Major  by  the  Highland  Senachie  at  the  coronation  of  Alexander  iii.,  and  also  given  by 
Fordun,  which  describes  him  as  son  of  Ere  or  Erth,  son  of  Eochy  Muinremair.  The 
third  is  the  embellished  and  extended  production  of  misty  and  fabulous  monarchs,  with 
alternating  good  and  bad  records,  of  Boece,  Buchanan,  and  the  later  historians  prior 
to  the  critical  essay  of  Innes.  The  second  class  of  pedigrees  deduce  the  descent 
through  thirty-three  descents  to  Fergus,  son  of  Ferchar,  the  traditional  founder  of  the 
Scottish  monarchy,  which  includes  the  names  of  two  Irish  monarchs,  Conair  and 
Edirsceol.  The  earliest  Latin  chronicle  of  1165  says,  'Fergus  filius  Ere  ipse  fuit 
primus  qui  de  semine  Chonar  suscepit  regnum  Alban  id  est  a  Monte  Drum- Alban 
usque  ad  mare  Hibernie  et  ad  Inchegal.' 


310  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

to  join  the  parent  stock  in  all  hostings  and  expeditions. 
He  seems  to  have  largely  extended  the  Dalriadic  kingdom. 
He  drove  the  Saxons  out  of  Manaan,  the  country  in  the 
south-east  of  Stirlingshire,  and,  in  a  battle  against  the  Picts 
between  the  Forth  and  Tay,  he  was  victorious,  aided, 
it  is  said,  by  the  prayers  of  Columba  in  lona,  though  four 
of  his  sons  fell.  He  was,  however,  defeated,  at  the  head 
of  a  combined  force  of  Scots  and  Britons,  by  the  Saxons 
under  Aedilfrid,  at  Degsastan  in  Liddesdale,  in  603.  On 
his  death  in  606,  he  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Eocha 
Buidhe,  or  the  Yellow-haired,  whom  Columba  had  named 
as  his  successor.  A  beautiful  tradition  tells  that  on  King 
Aidan  presenting  his  three  eldest  sons  to  Columba,  and 
asking  which  should  succeed  him,  the  saint  sadly  told 
him  that  all  three  would  fall  in  battle,  and  asked  for  the 
younger  children  to  be  sent  for.  When  they  came  in,  a 
fair-haired  boy  ran  forward  and  flung  himseK  into  the 
arms  of  Columba,  who  foretold  that  he  would  be  the  future 
king. 

Eochaidh  Buidhe  seems  to  have  transferred  the  throne 
of  Scottish  Dalriada  to  his  son  Conadh  Cerr,  and  as  his  death 
is  recorded  as  King  of  the  Picts  in  629,  when  he  was  fighting 
in  Ireland  in  aid  of  the  Irish  Picts,  Mr.  Skene  thinks  that 
he  had  somehow  acquired  the  sovereignty  of  the  Picts  of 
GaUoway.  Conadh  Cerr  was  succeeded  in  the  same  year 
by  his  brother  Domnall  Breac,  who  was  twice  defeated 
by  the  Angles  between  the  Roman  wall  and  Edinburgh. 
Hitherto  the  two  Christian  nations,  the  Scots  and  Britons 
of  Strathclyde,  had  been  in  aUiance,  but  Domnall  Breac, 
who  had  incurred  the  curse  pronounced  by  Columba  on 
any  descendant  of  Aidan  who  should  '  act  unjustly  against 
me  and  my  kin,'  and  in  spite  of  the  obligation  as  to  hostings 
and  expeditions,  had  sided  with  the  Irish  Picts  against 
the  Scottish  king  of  Ireland,  was  slain  by  King  Oan  of 
Strathclyde,  in  the  upper  part  of  the  Carron  valley  in  642. 
It  would  appear  that  the  Britons  then  established  a  domina- 
tion over  the  Scots,  who  fell  with  them  under  the  sway 


THE  SCOTTISH  EACE  AND  KINGDOM       311 

of  the  Angles  of  Northumbria,  being,  as  Adamnan  says, 
'  trodden  down  by  strangers.' 

In  678  the  Scots  seem  to  have  risen,  under  Fearchar 
Fada  of  the  tribe  of  Lorn,  and  the  defeat  of  the  Saxons 
by  the  Picts  at  Dunnichen  in  685  resulted  in  the  Scots  and 
a  part  of  the  Britons  regaining  their  liberty.  Two  lines  of 
descent  are  now  recorded,  that  in  the  Cinel  Gabran,  consist- 
ing, after  Domnall  Breac,  of  his  brother,  Conall  Crandomna 
and  his  two  sons,  Mailduin  and  Domnall  Donn,  who  died 
in  696,  and  was  succeeded  by  Eocha,  grandson  of  Domnall 
Breac,  who  was  slain  in  the  following  year.  Ferchar 
Fada  was  in  697  succeeded  by  his  son  Ainbhcellaig,  and  he 
by  his  brother  Sealbach,  whose  seat  was  at  DunoUy,  and 
who  fought  both  against  the  Cinel  Gabran  and  the  Britons. 
In  723  Sealbach  became  a  cleric,  and  was  succeeded  by 
his  son  Dun  gal.  He  was,  however,  driven  out  by  Eochaidh, 
son  of  the  Eochaidh,  grandson  of  Domnall  Breac,  in  726, 
while  Eochaidh's  brother  Alpin,  whose  name  shows  he  had 
a  Pictish  mother,  established  himself  on  the  Pictish  throne. 
A  more  powerful  champion  existed  among  the  four  claimants 
to  the  Pictish  throne,  and  Alpin  was  defeated  at  Moncreiff 
by  Angus  MacFergus,  and  subsequently  by  Nectan  at 
Caislen  Credi  or  Scone.  Angus  ultimately  vanquished  all 
his  competitors,  and  the  death  of  Eochaidh  having  led  to 
an  uprising  of  the  family  of  Lorn,  and  Dungal,  who  again 
seized  the  throne,  having  taken  captive  Angus's  son  in 
Ireland,  Angus  MacFergus,  the  greatest  of  all  the  Pictish 
kings,  invaded  Dalriada,  took  Dunadd,  and  so  completely 
overwhelmed  the  race  that  the  tribe  of  Lorn  made  a  desperate 
attempt  upon  the  district  on  the  south  of  the  Forth,  where 
they  were  defeated,  while  Alpin,  who,  at  the  head  of  the 
Cinel  Gabran,  reigned  four  years  after  Dungal  was  thrown 
into  chains  by  Angus,  invaded  Galloway  with  the  part  of 
the  Dalriadic  nation  which  followed  him,  and  was  slain 
there,  after  having  laid  waste  and  almost  destroyed  the 
country  of  the  Picts.  This  was  in  741,  and  he  is  said  to 
have  been  killed  by  a  single  man,  who  lay  in  wait  in  a  wood 


312  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

at  a  ford.  There  is  such  a  place  on  the  east  of  Loch  Ryan, 
at  the  border  line  between  Carrick  and  Galloway,  where 
there  stands  a  large  pillar  stone  known  as  Laight  Alpin, 
or  the  grave  of  Alpin. 

It  has  to  be  remembered  that  the  succession  to  the 
Pictish  throne  was  through  females,  and  that  up  to  this 
time  no  instance  occurs  of  the  son  of  a  previous  king  suc- 
ceeding The  fathers  are  frequently  men  of  another  race, 
one  being  a  prince  of  the  Saxon  house  of  Northumbria, 
and  another  a  Strathclyde  Briton.  The  name  of  Angus 
MacFergus  suggests  that  his  father  may  have  been  a  Scot, 
and  if  so,  he  may  have  had  some  claim  to  the  throne  of 
Dalriada.  It  is  remarkable  that  the  first  occasion  on 
which  the  son  of  a  previous  king  comes  to  the  throne  is 
in  the  case  of  Talorgan,  son  of  Angus,  in  780,  who  followed 
three  intervening  kings,  and  this  break  in  upon  the  law 
of  Pictish  succession  may  be  the  result  of  Scottish  ideas. 

It  is  also  to  be  observed  that  the  next  instance  is  the 
case  of  the  successor  of  the  second  Angus  MacFergus  in 
834,  who  was  the  son  of  his  brother  and  predecessor, 
Constantin  MacFergus,  and  it  seems  '  probable  that  they 
belonged  to  the  royal  family  of  which  the  first  Angus,  son 
of  Fergus,  was  the  founder,  and  which  appears  to  have 
been  pecuHarly  connected  with  Fortrenn,'  the  frontier 
province  of  the  Picts  between  the  Forth  and  the  Tay. 
Both  Constantin  and  Angus  are  recorded  as  ruUng  in 
Dalriada. 

In  765,  in  the  period  between  the  death  of  the  first 
Angus  and  his  brother  Brude,  sons  of  the  first  Fergus, 
and  the  accession  of  Constantin  and  the  second  Angus, 
sons  of  the  second  Fergus,  the  Scots  seem  to  have  risen 
in  Dalriada,  under  Aedfin,  son  of  Ecdach,  who  is  called 
King  of  Dalriada  in  the  Ulster  Annals,  and  died  in  778. 
The  death  of  Fergus  Mac-Echach  (apparently  his  brother). 
King  of  Dalriada,  is  recorded  in  781.  In  832  there  appears 
as  a  claimant  for  the  Pictish  throne,  Alpin,  King  of  the 
Scots,  a  Scot  by  paternal  descent,  but  whose  name,  Hke 


THE  SCOTTISH  RACE  AND  KINGDOM       313 

that  of  the  previous  Alpin,  shows  that  his  mother  was 
a  Pict.  The  mediaeval  chroniclers  call  her  Fergusia, 
daughter  of  Hung  or  Angus,  King  of  the  Picts.  The 
Chronicle  of  Huntingdon  records  that  '  in  the  year  834 
[a  mistake  for  832,  which  Skene  identifies  as  the  true  date], 
there  was  a  conflict  between  the  Scots  and  Picts  at  Easter, 
and  many  of  the  more  noble  of  the  Picts  were  slain,  and 
Alpin,  King  of  the  Scots,  remained  victorious,  but  being 
elated  with  his  success,  he  was,  in  another  battle  fought 
on  the  20th  of  July  in  the  same  year,  defeated  and  de- 
capitated.' Pitelpie,  formerly  Pitalpin,  near  Dundee,  is 
the  traditional  site  of  this  battle,  and  Rathelpin,  or  the 
Fort  of  Alpin,  near  St.  Andrews,  '  seems,'  says  Skene, '  to 
indicate  that  it  was  in  the  province  of  Fife  that  he  found 
his  support  and  established  himself  after  his  first  success.' 
With  this  Alpin,  the  father  of  Kenneth,  we  touch  definite 
historic  ground,  after  an  interval  of  ninety-one  years  from 
the  death  of  the  previous  Alpin,  the  last  established  monarch 
of  Dalriada  in  direct  descent  of  the  family  of  Aidan  and 
Fergus. 

The  mediaeval  lists  of  the  kings  only  recognise  the  later 
Alpin  and  have  evidently  confused  the  two.  They  give 
fairly  correctly  the  early  monarchs  of  the  house  of  Fergus 
down  to  Domnall  Breac.  The  names  which  follow  are 
evidently  taken  partly  from  his  descendants,  partly  from 
the  house  of  Lorn,  and  partly  from  the  Pictish  rulers  of 
Dalriada.  Five  years  after  his  father's  death  appears 
Kenneth,  the  son  of  Alpin,  of  whom  the  Pictish  chronicle 
says  that  he  *  first  of  the  Scots  governed  Pictavia  happily  for 
16  years.  Two  years,  however,  before  he  came  to  Pictavia 
he  acquired  the  kingdom  of  Dalriada.'  The  Chronicle  of 
Huntingdon  says  that  he  '  succeeded  his  father  Alpin  in 
his  kingdom  and  that  in  the  seventh  year  of  his  reign, 
which  corresponds  with  the  year  839,  while  the  Danish 
pirates,  having  occupied  the  Pictish  shores,  had  crushed  the 
Picts,  who  were  defending  themselves,  with  a  great  slaughter, 
Kenneth  passing  into  their  remaining  territories  turned  his 


314  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

arms  against  them  and  having  slain  many  compelled  them 
to  take  flight,  and  was  the  first  King  of  the  Scots  who 
acquired  the  monarchy  of  the  whole  of  Alban  and  ruled 
in  it  over  the  Scots.'  In  his  twelfth  year,  it  says,  he  '  en- 
countered the  Picts  seven  times  in  one  day,  and  having 
destroyed  many  confirmed  the  kingdom  to  himself.'  These 
dates  correspond  with  a  terrible  defeat  of  the  Picts  by  the 
Danes  in  839  in  which  their  king,  his  brother,  and  the 
Pictish  ruler  of  Dalriada  all  fell,  and  with  the  date  of  the 
last  Pictish  King  in  the  Pictish  Chronicle,  whose  reign 
terminated  in  844.  It  seems,  therefore,  clear  that  Kenneth 
inherited  a  kingdom  from  his  father,  and  that  it  was  not 
Dalriada,  which  he  is  recorded  as  conquering  first.  Un- 
fortunately there  is  a  blank  in  the  Irish  Annals  of  Tighernac 
between  the  years  765  and  973,  and  there  is  also  a  hiatus 
in  the  Pictish  chronicle,  but  from  four  of  the  later  chronicles, 
Mr.  Skene  thinks  the  hiatus  can  be  supplied,  and  the 
account  they  give  contains  the  statement  that  the  Scots 
inhabited  Galloway  along  with  the  Picts,  to  which  Giraldus 
Cambrensis  adds  '  they  effected  an  extension  of  their 
territories,'  and  the  Scala  Chronica  adds  'as  also  Argyll 
and  the  Isles.'  It  proceeds  to  give  the  traditionary  account 
of  the  conquest  of  the  Picts. 

We  have  seen  that  Eochaidh  Buidhe  had  passed  from 
Dalriada  to  rule  in  Galloway,  and  that  there  his  descendant, 
the  first  Alpin,  after  conquering  the  country,  had  met  his 
death.  It  seems,  therefore,  probable  that  the  kingdom  of 
the  second  Alpin  to  which  Kenneth  succeeded  was  Galloway. 
Galloway  at  an  early  period  included  Carrick,  into  which 
there  seems  to  have  been  a  considerable  Scottish  immigra- 
tion from  Kintyre,  and  Gaelic  was  spoken  in  Carrick  in 
Queen  Mary's  time,  and  in  Pictish  Galloway  so  late  as  the 
seventeenth  and  even  the  eighteenth  century.  The  question 
then  comes,  what  was  the  later  Alpin' s  connection  with 
the  original  royal  house  of  Dalriada.  That  he  was  a 
descendant  is  the  imvarying  testimony  of  all  the  narratives, 
but  there  is  obscurity  as  to  the  precise  links.     After  Fergus, 


THE  SCOTTISH  EACE  AND  KINGDOM       315 

the  first  king,  there  had  ruled,  second,  Domangart ;  third, 
his  son,  Comgall;  and  fourth,  Comgall's  son,  Conall,  who 
received  St.  Columba  ;  fourth,  Gabran,  brother  of  Comgall ; 
and  sixth,  Aidan,  son  of  Gabran ;  and  seventh  Eochaidh 
Buidhe,  son  of  Aidan. 

Mr.  Skene  points  out  that  St.  Berchan  in  his  so-caUed 
prophecy  (of  the  twelfth  centm-y),  after  a  few  stanzas  which 
refer  to  Conall,  son  of  Comgall,  passes  at  once  to  the  reign 
of  Kenneth  Macalpin  with  these  words  : — 

'  A  son  of  the  clan  of  his  son  will  possess 
The  kingdom  of  Albany  by  virtue  of  his  strength.' 

Conall  had  seven  sons.  The  Tract  on  the  Men  of  Alban, 
which  gives  a  detailed  account  of  the  descendants  of  Fergus 
Mor  for  some  generations,  gives  another  notice,  and  says 
that  from  Eochaidh  Buidhe,  son  of  Aidan,  there  branched 
off  two  clans,  '  the  clan  Fergusa  Gall,  son  of  Eachach 
Buidhe  or  the  Gabranaigh,  and  the  clan  Conall  Cerr,  son  of 
Eachach  Buidhe,  who  are  the  men  of  Fife  in  the  Sovereignty, 
that  is  the  clan  of  Kenneth,  son  of  Alpin,  son  of  Aidan.' 
Conall  Cerr  succeeded  his  father  as  King  of  Dalriada,  and 
was  killed  fighting  against  him  and  his  Galloway  Picts  in 
Ireland  in  629.  We  have  seen  that  the  existence  of  a 
Rathelpin  in  Fife  indicates  that  Alpin  had  a  special  foot- 
hold in  that  province,  and  in  807,  a  Conall,  son  of  Aidan, 
killed  Conall,  son  of  Tadg,  the  Pictish  governor  in  Kintyre. 
It  may  therefore  be  the  case  that  Alpin,  father  of  Kenneth, 
and  son  of  Aidan,  was  descended  from  Conall  Cerr,  son  of 
Eachach  Buidhe,  and  Mr.  Skene  suggests  that  the  line  of  suc- 
cession may  have  reve .  ted  from  the  descendants  of  Domnall 
Breac  to  those  of  Conall  Cerr,  his  brother  and  predecessor, 
among  whom  may  have  been  the  Aed  finn,  recorded  as  King 
of  Dalriada  in  778.  On  the  other  hand  the  genealogy  in 
the  Tract  of  the  Men  of  Alban  gives  a  connected  line  thus : 
'  Kenneth,  son  of  Alpin,  son  of  Eachach,  son  of  Aeda  find, 
son  of  Eachach,  son  of  Domangart,  son  of  Domnall  Breac,' 
deducing  the  later  Alpin  from  a  son  of  Domnall  Breac, 


816  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

called  Domangart.  The  mediaeval  chroniclers  make  their 
Alpin  the  son  of  Achaius  (the  Latinised  form  of  Eocha),  who 
is  treated  as  a  great  potentate  who  made  the  league  with 
Charlemagne  and  added  the  tressure  flory  coimter  flory  to 
the  Scottish  Royal  Arms,  and  call  this  Achaius,  the  son  of 
Ethfin  or  Aed  finn.  The  discrepancy  between  St.  Berchan 
and  the  Tract  on  the  Men  of  Alban  is  accounted  for  by  the 
existence  of  the  two  Conalls. 

Kenneth  Macalpin  was  succeeded  by  his  brother  Donald, 
and  the  Pictish  Chronicle  contains  the  significant  statement 
that  in  his  time  the  Gael  estabUshed  with  their  king  in 
Forteviot  the  rights  and  laws  of  the  kingdom  of  Edus,  son  of 
Ecdach,  Edus  being  the  Aedfin  who  made  the  stand  in 
Dalriada  against  the  Picts.  It  is  clear  that  he  was  a  ruler 
who  had  largely  influenced  the  institutions  of  his  race  and 
was  remembered  with  respect  It  appears  to  me  that  the 
pedigrees  given  in  the  Irish  Tract  on  the  Men  of  Alban 
(before  1372),  and  the  early  Latin  Chronicles  of  1165,  1187 
and  1251,  deserve  careful  consideration,  the  distinction 
being  always  kept  in  view  between  the  value  of  these 
chronicles  as  lists  of  monarchs  supposed  to  have  ruled 
over  the  whole  of  Dalriada,  and  their  value  when  they 
record  direct  descent.  For  this  purpose  the  kings  whose 
descendants  either  died  out  or  did  not  succeed,  the  kinglets 
of  the  house  of  Lorn,  the  Pictish  rulers  introduced  in  some 
lists  and  the  statement  as  to  the  later  Alpin  being  killed  in 
Galloway,  may  be  left  out  of  view.  This  being  done  it  is 
found  that  all  these  chroniclers  give  a  direct  descent  of 
Kenneth  Macalpin  from  father  to  son,  as  follows  : — 

Fergus. 

Domangart. 

Gabran. 

Aidan. 

Eochaidh  Buidhe,  d.  629. 

Donald  Breac,  whose  death  is  variously  recorded  in 
642  and  686. 

Domangart  (killed  in  673). 


M 


THE  SCOTTISH  RACE  AND  KINGDOM       317 

Eachach,  described  as  Eachach  of  the  bent  nose  (habens 
curvum  nasum),  rineamhail,  ronnauel,  monanhf  son 
of  Domangart;  son  of  Domnall  Breae  (c.  733). 

Aeda  find  or  Ed-albus,  son  of  Eachach  curvi  nasi, 
whose  death  as  rex  Dalriata  is  recorded  in  778. 

Eachach,  or  Eochal  venenosus  filius  Edalhi,  or  Eocha 
anuine  or  Anghhaidh, 

Alpin,  son  of  Eochal  venenosi. 

Kenneth  Macalpin. 

With  this  the  genealogy  of  William  the  Lyon  of  1185, 
the  Scala  Chronica,  and  the  Norman  chronicle  of  the  Picts 
and  Scots  of  1317  all  correspond,  the  simplest  form  being 
the  direct  genealogy  in  the  Irish  Tract  on  the  Men  of  Alban. 

With  the  omission  of  one  link,  the  name  of  the  second 
Domangart,  who  never  ruled,  the  same  descent  is  given  by 
Major  as  recited  by  '  the  wild  Scot  hoary  with  age,'  who 
appeared  at  the  coronation  of  Alexander  in.,  the  names, 
running  backward,  being :  '  Kenneth  filius  Alpini  f .  Ethachi, 
f.  Ethafind,  f.  Echdachi,  f.  Donaldi  Brek,  f.  Occabuid, 
f .  Edain,  f .  Gobrann,  f .  Dovengard,  f .  Fergusii  Magni,  f .  Erth, 
f.  Eachach  Munremoire.' 

Some  versions  introduce  another  Eachach  or  Echadach, 
son  of  Eachach  of  the  bent  nose,  as  the  father  of  Aeda-find, 
and  the  Annals  of  Tighernac  record  the  death  in  733  of 
Eochach  MacEchach  Ri  Dalriada,  while  the  Annals  of 
Ulster  record  the  death  in  697  of  *  Euchu  nepos  Domhaill,' 
grandson  of  Donald.  It  seems,  therefore,  certain  that 
there  were  two  Eachachs  at  this  time,  that  the  earlier, 
who  only  reigned  for  one  year,  was  the  son  of  Domangart, 
and  that  his  son  was  the  Eachach,  the  father  (or  brother) 
of  Aeda  find. 

If  the  genealogy  is  correct — and  as  it  is  undoubtedly 
correct  down  to  Domnall  Breac,  it  appears  to  me  that  it  is 
probably  also  correct  as  to  the  later  generations  more  likely 
to  be  remembered — it  completely  answers  the  question  to 
which  branch  of  the  Cinel  Gabran  did  Kenneth  belong,  and 
the  only  remaining  question  is  whether  there  are  a  sufficient 


318  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

number  of  generations  between  Donald  Breae  and  Kenneth. 
If  the  version  which  gives  ten  generations  is  correct 
Eochaidh  of  the  bent  nose  had  three  sons,  the  Eochaidh 
recorded  as  succeeding  him,  who  died  in  733;  Alpin  who 
was  killed  in  Galloway  in  741  and  Aedfin  who  is  credited 
with  a  reign  of  thirty  years,  and  who  died  as  king  of  a  portion 
of  Dalriada  in  788.  If  the  true  number  of  generations  is 
eleven,  the  second  Eocha  was  the  father  and  not  the  brother 
of  Aeda-find.  The  younger  Alpin  might  well  have  a  claim 
on  the  elder  Alpin' s  conquest  of  GaUoway,  and  the  mention 
of  his  grandfather  as  rex  Dalriadi  suggests  that  at  that  time 
he  ruled  in  the  original  territory  of  the  Cinel  Gabran  in 
Kintyre,  from  which  communication  with  Galloway  was 
easy.  The  distinct  statement  of  Wyntoun  ought  not  to  be 
overlooked : — 

'  An  fra  this  Fergus  doun  be  lyne 
Descendand  even  was  be  lyne, 
Kennath  yat  was  aught  hundred  yere 
And  thre  and  fourtie  passit  cleir, 
Eftir  the  blessed  Nativitie 
Or  regnand  he  begouth  to  be 
Fra  the  Peyhtis  was  put  out. 

The  tend  man  without  doubt 
Was  Kenaught  Mack  alpyne 
Fra  this  Fergus  even  be  lyne.' 

Excluding  Fergus,  who  died  in  503,  and  Kenneth 
Macalpin,  whose  father  was  killed  in  834,  we  have  at  least 
ten  generations  in  330  years.  Applying  an  example  from 
my  own  family  as  a  test,  I  find  that  in  a  period  of  almost 
exactly  200  years  (1705-1904),  there  were  five  generations, 
from  the  death  of  one  ancestor  to  that  of  another.  If 
the  account  which  gives  Donald  Breac's  date  of  death  as 
686  be  correct,  the  first  five  generations  of  the  ten  covered 
a  period  of  183  years,  and  the  second  five  a  period  of  148 
years.  If  642  be  taken  as  the  proper  date,  and  this  seems 
to  be  correct,  the  first  five  generations  occupied  139  years, 
and  the  second  five  192.  The  ten  generations  give  an 
average  of  33  years,  the  five  I  have  used  as  an  illustration 


I 


THE  SCOTTISH  EACE  AND  KINGDOM       319 

one  of  40  years,  the  later  date  assigned  to  Donald  Breac's 
death  one  of  36  for  the  first  five  and  29  for  the  second  five, 
and  the  earlier  da^e  one  of  nearly  28  for  the  first  five,  and 
of  a  little  over  38  for  the  second  Rve,  If  the  real  number 
of  generations  was  eleven,  the  average  for  each  is  30  years, 
and  the  average  for  the  six  who  succeeded  Donald  Breac 
after  642  is  32.  There  is,  therefore,  no  impossibility  in 
reconciling  the  number  of  generations  with  the  period 
occupied,  and  it  does  not  appear  to  me  that  either  the 
vague  statement  of  St.  Berchan,  or  the  inserted  mysterious 
passage,  apparently  from  an  older  version,  in  the  Tract 
on  the  Men  of  Alban,  as  to  '  the  Men  of  Fife  in  the  sovereignty 
i.e.,  the  clan  of  Alpin,  son  of  Aidan,'  there  being  no  record 
of  any  Aidan  as  the  father  of  Alpin,  and  the  Prophecy 
and  the  Tract,  being  contradictory  of  each  other,  is  suffi- 
cient to  displace  the  direct  pedigree  given  in  the  same 
Tract.  It  is  possible  that  the  expression  '  son  of  Aidan ' 
may  refer  either  to  Aeda  find  his  grandfather,  or  to  his 
ancestor  King  Aidan,  the  greatest  of  the  Dalriadic  kings, 
and  it  will  be  seen  that  there  are  traces  of  carelessness  and 
mistake  in  the  passage  in  the  Tract  on  the  Men  of  Alban, 
on  which  Mr.  Skene's  argument  is  founded.  As  other 
words  have  obviously  been  slipped  in  in  the  wrong  places, 
it  is  quite  possible  that  the  words  '  son  of  Eochaidh '  have 
been  left  out  between  '  Alpin '  and  '  son  of  Aidan.'  The 
result  is  that  there  is  no  sufficient  ground  to  discredit  the 
direct  pedigrees  given  by  the  earlier  mediaeval  chroniclers, 
for  the  period  between  Fergus  and  Kenneth  as  records 
of  actual  descent,  that  for  the  earlier  portion  of  that  period 
they  are  fully  corroborated,  and  that  for  the  later  portion 
there  are  adminicles  of  evidence  in  sources  beyond  suspicion, 
which  are  consistent  with,  and  indeed  support,  the  pedigree. 

n 

Of  the  character  of  the  conquest  by  Kenneth  Macalpin, 
it  seems  clear  that  it  was  rather  a  dynastic  triumph  than 


320 


THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 


a  racial  subversion.  The  mediaeval  chroniclers  embellish 
it  with  romantic  episodes,  such  as  the  device  employed 
by  Kenneth  to  rouse  the  faltering  spirits  of  the  Scottish 
chiefs  by  the  apparition  of  a  man  clothed  in  a  robe  covered 
with  fish  scales  to  represent  a  heavenly  messenger,  and 
the  invitation  of  the  great  lords  of  the  Picts  to  a  banquet, 
where  the  seats  were  undermined,  and  those  who  occupied 
them  slain  easily  in  the  hollow  places  into  which  they  were 
precipitated  when  the  supports  were  withdrawn.  There 
are,  however,  historical  facts  sufficiently  significant,  whether 
these  stories  be  artistic  inventions,  or  traditions  founded 
on  real  facts.  One  is  the  weakening  of  the  Pictish  power 
by  the  Danish  invasions.  Another  is  the  extent  to  which 
the  Pictish  rule  of  succession  had  already  been  weakened 
by  the  descendants  of  Angus  MacFergus.  It  only  required 
the  presence  of  a  king  strong  enough,  while  having  a  good 
personal  claim  under  the  Pictish  law,  to  alter  it  permanently 
in  favour  of  his  descendants,  and  even  under  Kenneth's 
successors  there  seems  to  have  been  one  case  in  which  the 
Pictish  custom  cast  its  weight  into  the  scale.  Most  im- 
portant of  all  were  the  facts  that  the  two  peoples  were  of 
kindred  race  and  common  language,  and  the  influence  of 
the  Columban  Church.  The  close  connection  of  the  Picts 
with  the  Angles  of  Northumbria  had  resulted  in  the  super- 
session of  the  Columban  rule  by  that  of  Rome,  under  Nectan 
MacDerili,  the  Pictish  king,  in  710,  and  the  expulsion  of 
the  Columban  clergy  from  the  Pictish  territories  east  of 
Drumalban  in  717.  The  great  Angus  MacFergus  had 
founded  the  monastery  of  St.  Andrews  before  747.  The 
connection  of  his  successors  with  Dalriada  led,  however, 
apparently  to  a  reversion  of  friendliness  to  the  Columban 
Church,  and  when  the  church  of  lona  had  been  plundered 
by  the  Norwegian  pirates  in  794,  burnt  by  them  in  802, 
and  the  community  of  lona  slain  by  them  in  806,  Constantin 
Mac  Fergus  founded  the  church  of  Dunkeld,  and  the  influence 
of  the  Columban  Church  again  began  to  affect  the  regions 
of  the  southern  Picts.     The  Pictish  Chronicle  records  that 


THE  SCOTTISH  EACE  AND  KINGDOM       321 


■  ji  in  the  seventh  year  of  his  reign  over  the  Picts,  i.e.  851, 
Kenneth  Macalpin  transferred  the  relics  of  St.  Columba 
to  a  church  which  -he  had  built,  and  Dunkeld  became  the 
head  centre  of  the  Scottish  Church. 

That  there  was  any  wholesale  extermination  of  the 
Pictish  population  seems  most  improbable.  One  of  the 
old  legends  of  the  earlier  Pictish  settlements  says  that  the 
Picts  conquered  Alban  from  Cath  to  Forcu,  but  '  without 
destroying  the  people.'  The  Scottish  conquest  might  well 
be  expressed  in  the  same  terms.  There  is  probably  much 
truth  in  the  traditions  of  dire  misfortune  overtaking  the 
chiefs  and  nobles  of  the  Picts.  There  would  be  forfeitures 
and  replacements,  and  as  time  went  on  the  higher  positions 
and  rights  of  property  and  overlordships  would  more  and 
more  pass  into  the  hands  of  Scots  connected  with,  or 
rendering  good  service  to  the  royal  house.  The  chief 
line  of  invasion  and  immigration  would  be  from  Dalriada, 
through  Breadalbane,  and  down  the  Tay,  the  Earn,  and  the 
Pass  of  Leny,  and  a  population  of  Scottish  race  would  tend 
to  increase  and  preponderate  on  these  lines  in  AthoU, 
around  Dunkeld,  and  in  the  vicinity  of  the  capitals  at 
Forteviot  and  Scone.  Indeed,  the  true  relation  of  the 
Scots  to  the  other  Celtic  races  seems  to  me  to  present  a 
remarkable  parallel  to  that  of  the  Normans  to  the  other 
Teutonic  races.  Not  numerous  in  comparison  with  the 
others,  they  seem  to  have  been  the  bravest  warriors,  and 
exemplars  of  the  highest  type  of  religion  in  the  ages  of  their 
supremacy.  The  notion  which  presents  them  as  barbarian 
invaders,  destroying  a  higher  civilisation  established  among 
the  Picts,  seems  quite  untenable,  and  their  superiority,  and 
the  introduction  of  their  law  of  Succession,  Church,  and 
customs  was  in  its  day  a  development  and  advance,  just 
as  in  a  later  age  Queen  Margaret's  reforms,  and  the  establish- 
ment of  feudal  charter  rights,  were  an  advance  on  their 
own.  The  one  hundred  and  fifty  men  who,  according  to 
the  Tract  on  the  Men  of  Alban,  crossed  the  Irish  Channel 
with  Fergus  Mor,  had  developed  under  Aidan  into  a  military 

VOL.  VI.  X 


322  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

kingdom,  which  carried  its  arms  to  the  Forth  and  the 
Cheviots,  and  even,  according  to  one  entry,  to  the  Orkneys. 
In  spite  of  reverses  and  disasters,  the  race  rallied  to  such 
an  extent,  that  under  Kenneth  Macalpin  it  had  estabUshed 
the  centre  of  its  kingdom  on  the  banks  of  the  Tay.  He 
and  one  or  two  of  his  successors  are  still  found  recorded 
as  Kings  of  the  Picts,  but  in  a  generation  or  two  the  name 
of  Pict  is  forgotten,  the  country  north  of  the  Forth  as  far 
as  Moray  is  Scotia;  and  when  the  direct  line  of  the  royal 
race  fails  with  Alexander  ni.,  four  hundred  years  after 
King  Kenneth's  day,  the  repeated  invasions  of  the  Danes 
and  Norsemen  have  left  no  permanent  conquest,  and  Nor- 
man, Saxon,  Pict,  Briton,  and  Scot,  from  the  Cheviots  to 
the  Pentland  Firth,  are  welded  into  one  whole  as  the 
Kingdom  of  Scotland. 

The  chief  steps  in  that  process  may  be  briefly  sum- 
marised. The  succession  followed  the  Gaelic  rule  of 
tanistry,  giving  preference  to  brothers  over  sons.  Kenneth 
was  succeeded  by  his  brother  Constantin  (863),  who  fell  in 
battle  with  the  Danes  in  Fife  in  877,  and  he  by  another 
brother  Aedh,  who  was  slain  at  Inverurie  in  the  following 
year.  Under  Pictish  law  the  succession  then  fell  to  Eocha, 
son  of  Rim  the  King  of  the  Strathclyde  Britons,  whose 
mother  was  a  daughter  of  Kenneth  Macalpin,  and  the 
Pictish  party  prevailed  for  the  time,  Eocha  being  placed 
on  the  throne  while  Ciricius  or  Grig,  known  to  the  mediaeval 
historians  as  Gregory  the  Great,  also  of  British  descent, 
was  associated  with  him.  Both  were  driven  out  after 
eleven  years,  and  Donald,  son  of  Constantin,  the  heir  by 
Scottish  law,  succeeded  and  reigned  till  900,  when  he  was 
killed  by  the  Danes  at  Dunottar.  He  was  succeeded  by 
Constantin,  son  of  Aedh  (900  to  940),  in  whose  time  the  old 
line  of  the  British  kings  of  Strathclyde  failed,  and  the 
Britons  elected  Donald,  Constantin's  brother.  Constantin, 
retiring  in  his  old  age  to  the  Monastery  of  St.  Andrews, 
was  succeeded  by  Malcolm,  son  of  his  predecessor,  Donald, 
who  after  having  Cumbria  or  Strathclyde  handed  over  to 


THE  SCOTTISH  EACE  AND  KINGDOM       323 

him  by  the  Northumbrian  Saxons,  was  killed  by  the  men 
of  the  Mearns  at  Fetteresso  in  954.  Under  his  successor 
Indulph  (954-962);  Edinburgh  was  surrendered  to  the 
Scots.  He  was  succeeded  by  Duff,  slain  at  Forres  in  967,  and 
he  by  CuUen,  who  was  slain  by  the  Britons  in  971.  His  suc- 
cessor, Kenneth,  fortified  the  fords  of  Forth,  '  gave  Brechin 
to  the  Lord,'  and  was  slain  at  Fettercairn  in  995.  His 
successor,  Constantin  MacCulindin,  was  slain  two  years 
after.  Kenneth,  the  next  king,  fell  in  1004  in  '  a  battle 
among  the  men  of  Alban  themselves.'  Malcolm,  the  next 
king,  after  defeating  the  Saxons  at  Carham  in  1018, 
extended  the  frontier  of  Scotland  to  the  Tweed,  while  the 
line  of  the  British  kings  of  Strathclyde,  descended  from  the 
Scottish  Donald,  terminated  in  his  time,  and  Strathclyde  is 
henceforth  found  as  a  principality  under  the  son  of  the 
Scottish  monarch.  He  died  in  1034,  leaving  no  male  issue, 
but  his  grandson  by  his  daughter  Bethoc,  who  had  married 
Crinan  the  lay  Abbot  of  Dunkeld,  '  the  gentle  Duncan,' 
succeeded  him.  He  was  murdered  by  Macbeth,  who  held 
the  kingdom  in  alliance  with  the  Norsemen  of  Caithness 
who  had  overrun  the  northern  provinces,  for  seventeen  years 
(1040  to  1057).  The  short-lived  career  of  Macbeth's  relative 
'  Lulach  the  fool '  does  not  break  the  historical  record. 
Under  Malcolm  Canmore  (1057-1095)  the  kingdom  was 
further  consolidated,  and  after  the  reign  of  Donald  Bane, 
the  last  example  of  succession  according  to  the  law  of 
tanistry  (1093),  Duncan  (1093-4),  Donald  Bane  again  and 
Eadmund  (1094-1097),  Edgar  (1097-1107),  Alexander  i. 
(1107-1124),  reduced  the  rebellious  province  of  Moray. 
David  I.  (1124-1153)  was  succeeded  by  his  grandson, 
Malcolm  (1153-1165),  who  finally  subdued  the  recalcitrant 
provinces  of  Galloway  and  Moray,  from  the  latter  of  which 
Fordoun,  with  probably  some  exaggeration,  says  he  removed 
the  native  population  '  and  scattered  them  throughout  the 
other  districts  of  Scotland,  both  beyond  the  hills  and  on 
this  side  thereof  so  that  not  even  a  native  of  that  land 
abode  there,   and  he  installed  therein  his  own  peaceful 


324  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

people.'  William  the  Lyon  (1166-1214)  put  down  revolts 
in  Galloway  and  Moray,  and  subdued  the  provinces  of  Ross 
and  Caithness.  His  son  Alexander  ii.  (1214-1249)  subdued 
Argyll,  which  had  been  practically  independent  under  the 
house  of  Somerled,  and  his  son  Alexander  in.  (1249-1285) 
defeated  the  Norsemen  at  Largs  and  completed  the  con- 
solidation of  the  kingdom  by  the  annexation  of  the  Western 
Isles.  With  his  granddaughter,  the  Maid  of  Norway,  who 
died  in  1290  on  the  way  from  Norway  to  take  possession  of 
her  kingdom,  the  direct  line  of  the  monarchy  of  the  Scottish 
Celtic  race  terminated. 

The  three  great  branches  of  the  Dalriad  Scots  were  the 
Cinel  Gabran,  the  Cinel  Lorn  and  the  Cinel  Angus,  to  which  is 
sometimes  added  the  Cinel  Comgall  or  the  descendants  of 
Comgall,  the  brother  of  Gabran.  The  Tract  on  the  Men  of 
Alban  also  indicates  further  subdivisions  of  these  houses. 
Thus  '  the  three  powerf  uls '  of  the  Cinel  Lorn  were  the  Cinel 
Fergusa  Salach,  the  Cinel  Cathbath,  whose  jugulatio  is 
recorded  in  701,  and  the  Cinel  Eachaidh,  son  of  Muredach. 
In  recording  the  descent  of  Kenneth  Macalpin,  two  versions 
continue  after  the  reference  to  his  father  Alpin :  *  Son  of 
Eachach,  son  of  Aeda  find,  son  of  Domangart ;  here  branch 
off  the  Cinel  Gabran  and  the  Cinel  Comgall ;  son  of  Domnall 
Breac  son  of  Eachachbuidhe ;  here  branch  off  the  Clan 
Fergusa  Gall,  son  of  Eachach  buidhe  id  est,  the  Gabranaig 
and  the  Clan  Conall  Cerr,  son  of  Eachach  buidhe  id  est,  the 
men  of  Fife  in  the  Sovereignty  id  est,  the  Clan  of  Kenneth, 
son  of  Alpin,  son  of  Aedan ;  here  branch  off  the  Clan 
Eachach  buidhe,  the  men  of  the  half  share  of  Conaing  {of  the 
half  land),  son  of  Aidan,  son  of  Gabran,  son  of  Domangart, 
son  of  Fergus  Mor,  son  of  Ere ;  here  branch  off  the  Cinel  Lorn 
Mac  Ere,  the  Cinel  Angus,  the  Cinel  Gabran  and  the  Cinel 
ComgalV 

The  first  reference  as  to  the  branching  off  of  the  Cinel 
Gabran  and  the  Cinel  Comgall  after  the  name  of  the  later 
Domangart  seems  to  be  a  repetition  and  clerical  error, 
caused  by  the  existence  of  the  two  Domangarts,  for  it  was 


THE  SCOTTISH  EACE  AND  KINGDOM       325 


of  course  from  the  sons  of  the  first  Domangart  that  these 
houses  came. 

Thus  in  addition^  to  the  four  great  tribes,  we  have  de- 
scendants of  Eachach  Buidhe,  known  as  the  Clan  Fergusa 
Gall,  and  the  Clan  Conall  Cerr  who  are  described  as  the  men 
of  Fife,  the  Clan  Eachach  Buidhe  and  the  men  of  the  half- 
share  of  Conaing.  It  seems  possible  that  here  we  have  in- 
dications of  settlements  either  then  or  at  a  subsequent  date 
in  Fife  and  possibly  in  Galloway,  where  Eachach  Buidhe 
reigned  and  where  the  Scottish  name  Ferguson  is  frequent, 
and  the  family  of  Craigdaroch  on  the  borders  of  Galloway  and 
Dumfriesshire,  said  to  be  the  oldest  in  the  south  of  Scotland, 
carry  the  lion  rampant  on  their  arms.  The  family  of  Kil- 
kerran  in  Carrick,  who  carry  different  arms,  similar  to  those 
borne  by  the  same  name  in  AthoU  and  Aberdeenshire,  by 
tradition  came  from  Atholl  before  the  time  of  Robert  the 
Bruce.     The  race  of  Conaing  have  been  located  in  Kintj^e. 

The  district  of  the  Lennox  was  originally  the  British 
territory  of  Reged,  and  in  the  end  of  the  tenth  century 
the  Scottish  King  of  Scone,  whose  predecessors  had  been 
killed  by  the  Britons,  found  it  desirable  to  fortify  the  fords 
of  Forth.  By  the  twelfth  century,  however,  it  was  occu- 
pied by  a  Gaelic  population,  ruled  over  by  Earls,  whose 
alleged  Saxon  descent,  as  given  by  the  earlier  peerage 
writers,  seems  erroneous,  while  their  names  correspond 
with  the  Celtic  origin  attributed  to  them  in  the  Irish 
pedigrees.  It  is  probable  that  the  district  was  occupied 
by  Scots,  and  curiously  enough,  it  is  found  associated 
with  one  of  the  clans  mentioned  in  the  Tract  on  the  Men 
of  Alban,  and  the  only  one  whose  name  corresponds  to 
that  of  a  modern  clan.  The  Annals  of  Ulster  record  that 
in  1216,  'Trad  O'Mailfabhail,  chief  of  Cinel  Fergusa, 
with  his  brothers  and  many  others  was  slain  by  Muiread- 
hach,  son  of  the  Mormaer  of  Lennox.'  It  must,  however, 
be  kept  in  view  that,  apart  from  the  Scottish  Fergusons 
from  Ayr  and  Galloway  who  settled  in  Ulster  at  the  Planta- 
tion and  in  Covenanting  times,  there  was  an  old  Irish  Cinel 


326  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

Fergusa,  descended  from  Fergus,  son  of  Eoghan,  son  of 
Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages.  It  is,  however,  unlikely  that 
an  Earl  of  Lennox  would  be  fighting  in  Ireland  so  late  as 
the  year  in  which  William  the  Lyon  died. 

The  district  of  Atholl  was  the  territory  of  the  lay 
abbots  of  Dunkeld,  and  on  the  settlement  of  their  line  on 
the  throne,  in  the  person  of  Malcolm  Canmore,  the  earl- 
dom was  conferred  on  a  branch  of  the  Royal  House,  the 
first  of  whom  was  Melmare,  brother  of  Malcolm  iii.  The 
oldest  clans  of  the  district  were  the  Fergusons,  who  always 
followed  the  Earls  of  Atholl,  and  were  numerous  there  and 
in  Balquhidder,  who  have  been  described  as  the  oldest 
clan  in  the  Highlands,  and  to  whom  tradition  and  the 
bards  attribute  descent  from  King  Fergus,  and  the  Robert- 
sons, who  are  descended  from  and  were  apparently  the  male 
representatives  of  the  old  Celtic  Earls  of  Atholl.  Both  of 
these  clans  may  be  safely  set  down  as  Scots  proper,  and  of 
the  race  of  Fergus. 

How  or  when  the  family  of  Alpin  acquired  its  connection 
with  Fife,  and  to  what  extent  Scots,  as  distinguished  from 
Pictish  Gaels,  settled  there  it  is  impossible  to  tell,  but 
undoubtedly  the  province  was  closely  associated  both  with 
the  house  of  Kenneth,  and,  after  the  defeat  of  Macbeth, 
with  that  of  Malcolm  Canmore,  and  its  recognition  as  a 
bulwark  of  the  Scottish  monarchy  is  attested  by  the  privi- 
leges conferred  in  '  the  Law  of  Clan  Macduff.'  That  the 
families  of  Arbuthnot  and  Spens  were  of  Scottish,  or,  at 
least,  Gaelic,  descent  to  some  extent  is  indicated  by  their 
claim  to  participate  in  these  privileges,  in  virtue  of  their 
kinship  to  the  Celtic  Earls  of  Fife.  The  old  Earls  of  Fife 
were  admittedly  of  Celtic  and  probably  Scottish  descent, 
and  the  Strathbogie  Earls  of  Atholl  were  a  branch  of  their 
race. 

Two  of  the  greatest  names  in  the  borders  suggest  that 
the  founders  of  these  families  were  Scots  who  settled  there 
after  the  conquest  of  Lothian.  One  is  that  of  Scott,  which 
speaks  for  itself  as  the  designation  given  by  a  Saxon  or 


THE  SCOTTISH  EACE  AND  KINGDOM       327 

British  population  to  one  of  another  race,  and  the  other 
that  of  Kerr,  which  is  a  descriptive  Gaelic  denomination. 

The  extent  of  the  Scottish  element  in  Galloway  is  im- 
possible to  ascertain.  The  people  were  the  last  to  retain 
the  name  of  Picts,  yet  they  had  been  for  years  in  sub- 
jection to  the  Angles  of  Northumbria,  and  had  been  subse- 
quently, at  least  so  far  as  the  coast  districts  were  con- 
cerned, under  the  domination  of  the  Norwegians.  In  the 
twelfth  century  it  is  found  under  the  rule  of  native  chiefs 
of  Celtic  descent,  the  first  of  whom  is  Fergus,  Prince  of 
Galloway,  of  whose  birth  and  lineage  no  trace  exists. 
Whether  he  was  a  Scot  or  a  Pict  it  is  impossible  to  say, 
but  the  Galloway  over  which  he  ruled  included  Carrick, 
where  the  Gaelic  population  was  probably  a  Scottish  one, 
superseding  an  older  British  one,  and  between  which  and 
the  Galloway  Picts,  the  feelings,  even  in  comparatively 
modern  times,  were  far  from  cordial.  His  name  suggests 
that  Fergus  was  of  Scottish  blood.  The  Kennedy  Earls 
of  Cassilis  are  descended  from  the  old  Celtic  Earls  of  Carrick, 
themselves  the  progeny  of  Fergus  of  Galloway,  through 
Roland  of  Carrick,  who  got  a  charter  of  the  headship  of  the 
clan  as  '  Ken  Kynol '  from  Earl  Neil  before  1256,  and 
John  Kennedy  of  Dunure,  *  Captain  of  the  Clan  Muintir- 
casduff  '  (the  people  of  the  blackfeet),  about  1346. 

The  original  territory  of  the  Scots  in  Dalriada  or  Argyll 
and  the  adjacent  islands  had,  in  the  period  between  the 
ninth  and  twelfth  centuries,  been  swept  and  subdued  by 
the  Norsemen.  With  the  weakening  of  their  power,  the 
native  tribes  arose,  under  Somerled,  whose  father's  and 
grandfather's  names  are  Gaelic,  and  the  result  was  the  found- 
ing of  the  great  house  of  the  Lords  of  the  Isles,  and  the  rise 
of  the  great  clans  of  Macdonald  and  Macdougall.  I  see 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  race  of  Somerled  were  Picts 
rather  than  Scots,  and  indeed  some  pedigrees  trace  them 
to  a  younger  son  of  Fergus,  and  the  chief  seat  of  their  power 
was  in  Islay,  which  had  been  Scottish  territory,  while  the 
physical  characteristics  attributed  to  them  in  an  old  Irish 


82a  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

poem  correspond  with  those  that  distinguished  the  IVIilesian 
stock. 

The  Irish  genealogies  of  several  of  the  Highland  clans, 
which  date  from  about  the  year  1400,  and  on  which  the  MS. 
of  1467  in  the  Advocates'  Library  is  based,  indicate  that 
the  Highland  clans  fall  into  several  classes.  The  older 
descent  is  mjrthical  and  obviously  fabulous. 

1.  The  Campbells  and  MacLeods  are  taken  back  to 
Fergus  Leith  Dearg,  son  of  Nemedh,  who  is  placed  long 
before  Picts  and  Scots  appear  in  Ireland.  But  it  may 
indicate  that  these  clans  were  in  Scotland  before  the  Scots, 
and  are  therefore  of  Pictish  descent,  and  the  Campbells 
are  found  in  the  district  of  Mid-Argyll,  which  was  not 
settled  by  the  Dalriads. 

2.  The  race  of  Somerled  is  traced  to  Colla  Uais,  son  of 
Eochaid  Doimlein,  King  of  Ireland. 

3.  From  theHyNiall  of  Ireland  are  brought  theLamonds, 
Maclachlans,  Clan  Somairle,  and  MacEwen  of  Otter. 

4.  From  Core,  son  of  Lughaidh,  King  of  Munster,  of 
the  line  of  Heber,  are  said  to  be  descended  the  Celtic  Earls 
of  Mar  and  Lennox. 

The  above  have  no  connection  with  the  family  of  Ere, 
although  several  of  the  clans  mentioned  inhabited  Scottish 
Dalriada,  and  the  last  three  groups  are  of  Scottish  race ; 
but  the  remaining  genealogies  are  all  deduced  from  the 
Dalriadic  tribe  of  Lorn,  and  may  be  classified  thus  : — 

From  Fearchar  fada,  son  of  Fearadach  finn,  who 
died  in  697,  and  is  given  as  descended  from  Muredach, 
son  of  Lorn  Mor — The  Clan  DufiF,  the  Macnaughtons, 
the  Clan  an  Toshach,  i.e.,  the  Clan  Gillachattan,  and 
the  Clan  Cameron. 

From  Fearchar  Abraruadh,  son  of  Feradach — The 
MacLeans,  the  Colquhouns  in  Lennox,  and  the  Clan 
Consithe  in  Fife. 

From  Donald  Donn,  son  of  Fearadach — The 
\  Clan  Lauren  (MacLarens),  the  Clan  Aid  or  Ay. 


THE  SCOTTISH  KACE  AND  KINGDOM       329 

From  Cormac,  son  of  Aibertach,  son  of  Feradach 
— (a)  The  clan  Annrias  (Rosses),  the  Clan  Kenneth 
(Mackenzies),  the  Mathesons,  and  the  Macdufiies  ; 
(b)  the  MacNabs  ;  (c)  the  Clan  Gregor ;  {d)  the 
Clan  Quarry,  the  McKinnons,  the  Macmillans,  and 
the  MacLennans. 
It  is  at  once  remarkable  that  these  genealogies  are  all 
traced  from  the  tribe  of  Lorn,  and  that  several  of  them  are 
genealogies  of  great  clans  in  Moray,  Ross  and  Inverness, 
far  outside  the  bounds  of  Dalriada.  It  is  still  more  remark- 
able that  there  is  no  trace  of  any  descended  from  the  elder 
sons  of  Lorn,  or  from  the  Cinel  Gabran,  the  Cinel  Comgall,  or 
the  Cinel  Angus.  Mr.  Skene  in  his  examination  has  pointed 
out  that  these  genealogies  are  generally  trustworthy  up  to 
about  the  date  of  Kenneth  Macalpin,  but  that  the  connection 
with  the  Dalriadic  Lorn  Mor  completely  breaks  down.  '  They 
may,'  he  says,  '  be  regarded  as  trustworthy  only  in  so  far  as 
they  show  the  links  of  the  descent  of  each  clan  from  its 
eponymus  as  believed  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries,  and  the  grouping  of  certain  clans  together  where  a 
common  ancestor  within  the  historic  period  is  assigned  to 
them.'  Probably  the  Aibertach,  from  whom  several  of  the 
clans  are  deduced  was  an  actual  personage,  at  a  later  date 
than  he  is  assigned  to,  for  he  is  said  to  have  had  twelve  tribes 
inhabiting  the  Norwegian  territory,  viz.  Greagraid  of  the 
champions  commonly  called  Mull,  and  Tiroda  (Tiree),  and 
Cruibhinis  or  Craobhinis  (or  Island  of  Bushes — lona).  It  is 
probable  that  to  some  extent  the  clans  whose  genealogies  are 
thus  given,  and  who  in  historical  times  are  found  holding 
possessions  in  Lorn,  in  Breadalbane  and  Balquhidder,  and 
in  Lennox,  were  really  descended,  as  believed,  from  the 
family  of  Lorn,  and  were  at  any  rate  of  Scottish  extraction. 
The  same,  however,  cannot  be  predicated,  though  it  may 
be  true,  of  the  Lochaber  and  Badenoch  clans,  and  it  becomes 
more  improbable  in  those  of  Moray  and  Ross.^ 

^  There  is  a  passage  in  M'Firbis's  Booh  of  Genealogies  which  ought  also  to  be  kept 
in  view,  of  which  he  says,  '  This  account  I  found  among  the  books  of  Fardeorough 


330  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

It  appears  to  me  that  the  conclusion  arrived  at  by 
Skene  is  irresistible,  that  the  mass  of  the  population  of 
the  Highlands  north  of  Argyll  and  possibly  Atholl,  were 
the  descendants  of  the  old  Pictish  tribes,  who  formed  the 
northern  or  Caledonian  Picts.  At  the  same  time  much 
happens  in  a  few  centuries,  and  some  of  the  most  famous 
Highland  clans,  such  as  the  Erasers,  Menzies,  and  Stuarts 
were  of  Norman,  or  as  the  Murrays  and  Sutherlands  of 
alleged  Flemish  descent,  though  it  is  more  probable  that 
the  original  Freskin  was  a  Gael  of  Moray.  The  compara- 
tively brief  period  in  which  a  clan  could  rise  is  illustrated 
by  the  history  of  the  Farquharsons.  Scots  as  well  as 
Normans  may  have  accompanied  the  monarch  in  the  asser- 
tion of  his  power  benorth  the  Mounth,  and  Scots  were  in  the 
field  two  hundred  years  before  Malcolm  Canmore's  Saxons, 
and  another  half -century  before  King  David  i.'s  Normans. 
It  is  quite  possible  that  individuals  penetrated  to  the  north 
and  founded  successful  families,  and  that  however  erroneous 
the  details  of  the  descent  may  be,  where  links  are  obviously 
wanting,  there  is  some  basis  of  fact  for  the  tradition. 

It  cannot  be  assumed  that  the  Mormaers  of  the  great 
Pictish  provinces,  whose  names  are  recorded  in  historic 
times,  were  themselves  Picts.  Indeed  the  statement  in 
the  Book  of  Deer,  which  says  that  when  Columba  came 
there  '  Bede  the  Pict '  was  Mormaer  of  Buchan,  may 
suggest  that  his  later  successors  at  least  were  Scots.  In 
the  case  of  Angus  there  is  the  tradition  that  King  Kenneth 
was  killed  in  995,  by  Finella,  in  revenge  for  the  death  of  her 
son,  killed  by  him  at  Dunsinnan,  Finella  being  the  daughter 

M'Firbis,  who  was  a  Sennachaidhe  well  acquainted  in  Alban  and  much  frequented 
it':— 

'  The  Clan  Domnall,  Clann  Ragnall,  Clann  Alasdair,  Clan  Tsithig  (Sheehy),  Clann 
Eachan,  Clan  Eadhain,  Clann  Dubgall,  and  Clann  Ragnall  Mhic  Domnall  Ghlais  are 
of  the  race  of  Eremon. 

*  Mac  Gille-Eoin  or  Mac  Gille  a  Ea-in  (MacLean),  the  two  MacLeods  (Harris  and 
Lewis),  Mac  Cennigh  (Mackenzie),  Mac-a-Toisigh  (Mackintosh),  Munnor  Hundon 
(Mormaire  of  Moray  ?)  are  of  the  race  of  Conaire. 

'Murmor  Abhail  (Mormaer  of  Atholl),  Murmor  Mair  (Mormaer  of  Mar),  Murmor 
Gall  (Mormaer  of  Galloway),  Mac  Cennedig  (Kennedys),  Muirgeach  Og,  Lord  of 
Grants  (Grants),  Mac  Cregan  (Macgregors  1)  are  also  of  the  race  of  Eremon.' 


_  THE  SCOTTISH  RACE  AND  KINGDOM       331 

of  Conquhar,  Mormaer  of  Angus,  and  the  probability  being 
that  the  later  Celtic  Mormaers  of  Angus  were  Scots.  In  the 
Irish  MS.  the  lin^  of  the  historic  Mormaers  of  Moray, 
including  both  Macbeth  and  Lulach,  Kings  of  Scotland, 
is  given  in  the  genealogy  of  the  Clan  Duff  as  among  the 
descendants  of  Lorn  Mor.  It  is  most  probable  that  just  as 
these  dignities  passed  later  to  Normans  either  by  marriage 
or  grant,  so  between  the  Scottish  conquest  and  the  Norman 
immigration  they  passed  from  Picts  to  Scots. 

The  traditions  of  one  group  of  clans  deserve  special 
consideration  as  they  assert  a  descent  from  the  Scottish 
Royal  House.  The  proud  motto  of  the  Macgregors  is 
'  Is  rioghail  mo  dhream,' '  Royal  is  my  race,'  and  they  and  the 
connected  clans  known  as  Clan  Alpin  claim  descent  from 
Kenneth  Mac  alpin.  The  siol  Alpin  includes  the  clan  Gregor, 
the  Grants,  the  Mackinnons,  Macquarries,  Macnabs  and 
Macaulays.  Bonds  of  Manrent  exist  between  the  Mac- 
gregors and  the  Mackinnons,  the  Mackinnons  and  the  Mac- 
nabs, and  the  Macgregors  and  the  Macaulays,  in  all  of 
which  relationship  is  affirmed,  and  an  early  connection 
between  the  Grants  and  Macgregors  is  undoubted.  The 
Irish  genealogies  indicate  that  the  group  of  clans  to  which 
the  Macgregors  and  others  of  the  siol  Alpin  are  assigned, 
belonged  to  the  great  tribe  of  Ross,  and  in  any  case  descent 
from  Kenneth  Macalpin  is  inconsistent  with  descent  from 
Lorn  Mor.  The  earliest  possessions  of  the  Macgregors  were 
in  Glenorchy,  and  the  Macnabs  in  Glendochart,  but  it  may 
be  that  when  Alexander  n.  reduced  Argyll,  in  which  he  was 
powerfully  aided  by  the  Earl  of  Ross,  he  planted  the 
ancestors  of  these  clans  there.  A  similar  explanation  may 
be  given  for  the  settlement  of  the  Macnaughtons,  a  branch 
of  Clan  Chattan,  on  Loch  Awe  and  Loch  Fyne,  or  it 
may  be  that  the  Clan  Chattan,  being  the  chief  branch  of  the 
great  tribe  of  Moray,  they  were  brought  by  Malcolm,  when 
he  expatriated  the  men  of  Moray,  placed  them  in  new  lands 
on  both  sides  of  the  mountains,  and  replaced  them  with 
'  his  own  peaceful  people.' 


332  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

It  is  indeed  remarkable  how  many  of  the  great  nobles 
of  Scotland  at  the  time  of  Robert  the  Bruce,  including  Mar, 
Fife,  and  Atholl,  Lennox  and  Strathearn,  were  of  direct 
male  Scottish  descent,  while  the  Bruces,  Comyns,  Umphra- 
villes,  and  probably  the  Campbells  owed  their  great 
possessions  not  so  much  to  direct  grant  as  to  a  Scottish 
ancestress.  It  is  impossible  to  determine  whether  the  race 
of  Douglas  was  of  Scottish  or  Norman  extraction,  and  it 
seems  at  least  probable  that  the  clan  and  name  of  Forbes, 
whose  chief  holds  the  premier  barony  of  Scotland  were  also 
Scots,  and  that  there  is  something  in  the  tradition  which 
connects  them  with  the  Urquharts  and  Mackays.  Two  tradi- 
tions, supported  by  the  name  Ochoncar,  derive  the  Fubeses 
from  Ireland,  and  there  was  in  Ireland  a  Clan  MacFirbis. 

The  result  of  the  investigation  is,  that  the  Scottish 
element  which  gave  its  name  to  the  country  was  a  large 
and  important  one  in  the  composition  of  its  population 
and  the  formation  of  its  character.  The  military  system 
of  the  Celtic  period  continued  to  provide  a  large 
portion  of  the  Scottish  armies  throughout  the  whole 
independent  history  of  the  realm.  Recognised  as  '  Scottish 
service,'  it  existed  side  by  side  with  '  knight  service,'  it  is 
shown  to  be  in  full  vigour  early  in  the  eighteenth  century 
in  Atholl  by  the  lists,  printed  in  the  Chronicles  of  Atholl 
and  TuUibardine  ;  and  it  was  under  the  old  obligation 
of  Feacht  and  Sluaged,  hosting  and  expedition,  that  the 
clans  rose  under  Montrose  and  Dundee  and  marched  to 
Derby  with  Prince  Charles.  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  after  the  conquest  by  Kenneth  Macalpin,  which  has 
considerable  resemblance  to  that  of  England  by  William 
the  Norman,  Scots  would  be  largely  settled  among  the 
Picts,  and  would  be  specially  numerous  in  the  central 
region  watered  by  the  Tay  and  the  Earn.  There  can  be 
as  little  doubt  that  many  of  the  families  who  assumed 
territorial  designations  as  their  surnames,  when  these  came 
into  vogue,  were  Scots,  and  that  the  Ogtierns,  who  were 
the  smaller  landowners,  continued  to  exist  side  by  side 


THE  SCOTTISH  RACE  AND  KINGDOM       333 

with  Norman  families  as  lesser  barons,  or  '  gudemen '  and 
proprietors  holding  of  subject  superiors,  obtaining  written 
charters,  and  assiHning  surnames,  when  these  came  into 
vogue,  from  their  ancestral  lands.  For  example,  the  Earls 
of  Airlie  and  Clan  Ogilvy  are  descended  from  a  younger 
son  of  the  old  Celtic  Earls  of  Angus,  who  obtained  the  feudal 
fief,  and  took  his  designation  from  the  lands  of  Ogilvie. 
The  house  of  de  Brechin  were  the  direct  descendants  of  an 
illegitimate  son  of  David,  Earl  of  Huntingdon  and  Garioch, 
David  the  Scot,  brother  of  the  Celtic  king.  The  House 
of  Randolph,  Earl  of  Moray,  were  sprung  from  a 
Dungal  of  Celtic  name  and  race,  whose  possessions  in 
Nithsdale  were  feudalised.  Even  the  great  family  of 
Dunbar,  Earls  of  March,  though  in  the  female  line  Saxons 
of  Northumbria,  were  in  the  male  line  the  progeny  of  a 
brother  of  the  gentle  Duncan. 

The  race  of  the  lay  abbots  of  Dunkeld,  is  still  repre- 
sented in  male  descent  by  the  chief  of  the  clan  Donachie  ; 
and  that  of  the  lay  abbots  of  Abernethy,  whether  it  be 
Scot  or  Pict,  in  the  female  line  by  Lord  Salton,  whose 
ancestor  inherited  the  title  conferred  on  an  Abernethy. 
It  is  probable  that  in  many  of  the  Highland  clans  the  chiefs 
and  '  duinewassails '  were  of  Scottish  descent.  For  more 
than  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  the  Scots  were  truly  the 
ruling  race,  and  it  was  under  their  guidance  that  the 
country  was  changed  from  four  independent  and  con- 
flicting states  into  a  compact  kingdom  with  definite 
boundaries,  which  maintained  its  independence  against 
a  powerful  neighbour  for  four  hundred  more,  that  Norman 
knights,  and  Saxon  and  Flemish  merchants  and  tradesmen 
were  welcomed  as  elements  of  strength  in  a  greater  national 
life,  and  that  substantial  advances  were  made  in  social 
progress  and  national  development. 

The  Scots  alone  of  the  early  races  came  to  Scotland 
as  a  Christian  people.  The  nobles  of  their  race  devoted 
themselves  to  the  cause  of  its  conversion,  and  they  spread 
Christian  civilisation  not  only  through  the  Northern  Picts, 


334  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

but  far  beyond  its  borders,  among  the  Teutonic  tribes  who 
gave  their  name  to  England.  They,  among  the  Celts,  as 
the  Normans  among  the  Teutons,  had  the  highest  ideal 
of  organisation  and  of  law,  as  well  as  the  foremost  military 
qualities,  and  with  them,  more  easily  and  completely  than 
with  any  other  race,  the  Norman  blood  blended  to  form  the 
guiding  element  of  a  strong,  a  logical,  and  an  enduring 
national  character.  The  perfervidum  ingenium  Scotorum  in 
intellectual  pursuits,  the  proud  valour  which  inspired  the 
French  proverb,  fler  comme  un  Ecossais,  are  in  no  small 
degree  due  to  the  special  Scottish  strain  in  the  blood  of 
modern  Scotsmen,  and  discarding  all  fabulous  and  mythical 
antiquity,  we  may  yet  affirm  that  no  race  has  more  cause 
to  be  proud  of  its  far  descended  royal  line,  or  has  produced 
a  representative  whom  it  has  more  reason  to  revere  than 
he  of  whom  it  was  written,  '  There  was  not  born  of  the 
Gaidhel  a  being  more  illustrious,  or  more  wise,  or  of  better 
family  than  Colum  Cille.  There  came  not  of  them  any 
person  who  was  more  modest,  more  humble,  or  more  lowly.' 


SOME  UNRECORDED  INCIDENTS   OF  THE 
JACOBITE  RISINGS 

Alexander  Carmichael 
{Continued  from  vol.  vi.  p.  283) 

Prince  Charlie 

Prince  Charlie  and  his  few  followers  landed  in  Eriskay 
from  France  on  the  23rd  of  July  1745.  Eriskay  is  a  hilly, 
rocky,  boggy,  sandy,  small  island  standing  in  the  sound  be- 
tween Barra  and  Uist.  There  was  only  one  isolated  family 
there  then:  there  are  one  hundred  congested  familiese 
now  in  Eriskay.  The  Prince  and  his  followers  slept  two 
nights  in  Eriskay,  saihng  on  the  25th  July  1745  for  Loch- 
nan-Uamh,  lying  between  Arasaig  and  Moideart. 

Near  where  the  French  frigate  anchored,  a  boat  from 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  JACOBITE  EISINGS     335 

Barra  lay  ready  to  sail  for  home,  laden  with  rafters  for 
roofing  a  house.  The  boat  belonged  to  John  Campbell, 
crofter.  Glen,  Barrar.  The  captain  of  the  frigate  asked  John 
Campbell  if  he  would  help  in  landing  stores.  Campbell  and 
his  men  joined  in  the  work  willingly,  the  rafters  being 
thrown  ashore.  The  stores  were  thrown  into  pits  near  the 
head  of  the  loch,  brushwood  being  strewn  over  the  closed 
trenches. 

When  the  work  was  done  the  French  captain  asked  John 
Campbell  what  he  charged  for  his  effective  help.  Campbell 
said  that  he  did  not  want  money,  but  that  if  he  had  meal 
to  spare  he  would  be  glad,  meal  being  scarce  in  Barra  that 
summer. 

The  Barra  skiff  was  laden  with  bags  of  flour  and  barrels 
of  biscuits,  with  casks  of  wine  and  boxes  of  brandy.  There 
was  much  joy  and  rejoicing,  much  sharing  of  goods  and 
many  mutual  good  wishes  in  Barra  that  year  ! 

When  the  French  frigate  arrived  the  men  of  Barra  had 
a  pot  of  strubain  (cockles)  upon  the  fire  for  their  dinner 
before  sailing  for  home.  Pot  and  cockles  were  overlooked 
in  the  joyous  mood  of  the  Barra  men;  and  pot  and  cockles 
stood  unmolested  upon  the  tripod  of  stones  long  years 
afterwards. 

The  scene  is  changed.  After  Culloden  Prince  Charlie 
wandered  a  fugitive  through  the  Western  Highlands  and 
Western  Isles.  He  slept  for  several  weeks  in  a  cave  in 
South  Uist.  Before  then  the  cave  was  called  *  Uamh  Chro- 
thadail,'  cave  of  Corrodal ;  since  then  the  cave  is  known  as 
*  Uamh  a  Phrionnsa,'  cave  of  the  Prince.  The  cave  is  in  the 
face  of  a  small  cliff  on  the  side  of  a  steep,  narrow  dell  running 
down  to  the  sea  a  few  yards  below.  It  lies  lengthwise  in  the 
face  of  the  rock  a  few  feet  long,  a  few  feet  wide,  a  few  feet 
high  and  with  a  sloping  floor. 

Chambers  says  that  a  hundred  persons  knew  the  hiding- 
place  of  the  Prince.     A  Gaelic  proverb  says  : — 
*  Cha  sgeul  ruin  e  bho  chuala  triuir  e.' 
'It  is  no  secret  since  three  have  heard  it.' 


336  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

It  would  be  safe  to  say  that  several  thousand  persons  knew 
that  the  Prince  was  in  Corrodal.  Practically  the  people  of 
Barra,  South  Uist,  Benbecula,  North  Uist,  Harris,  Lewis, 
Skye,  and  the  Small  Isles,  knew  that  the  Prince  was  in 
South  Uist. 

He  wandered  among  the  hills  and  moors,  among  the 
crofters,  of  which  the  place  was  then  full,  although  there 
are  none  now.  His  neighbours  far  and  near  vied  with  one 
another  in  supplying  his  needs  with  the  best  they  had  in 
their  power,  and  often  at  the  risk  of  their  hves  from  the 
soldiery  who  were  scouring  the  country. 

There  was  a  reward  of  thirty  thousand  pounds  upon 
the  head  of  the  Prince  dead  or  alive,  probably  equal  to 
a  hundred  thousand  pounds  of  the  present  currency. 

With  his  usual  prejudice  and  dogmatism  Lord  Macaulay 
alleges  that  the  Highlanders  did  not  know  the  value  of 
money  since  they  did  not  betray  the  Prince.  The  allegation 
is  as  unjust  as  it  is  ungenerous.  No  one  believed  the 
allegation,  nor  did  Lord  Macaulay.^ 

Mr.  John  Macaulay,  grandfather  of  Lord  Macaulay,  was 
minister  of  South  Uist  at  the  time.  The  church  was  then  at 
Eallpheadair,  and  the  minister  lived  near  the  church,  and 
within  a  few  miles  of  the  hills  where  the  Prince  wandered. 
The  situation  of  the  church  is  indicated  in  the  lines  of  the 
Eigg  poet : — 

*  Is  iomadh  maighdean  sparasach 
Dha  math  dha'n  tig  an  earasaid 
Eadar  Baile-mhanaich  's  Caolas  Bharraidh 
An  deigh  ort. 

Tha  tighinn  fotham  !  fotham  !  fotham  ! 
Tha  tighinn  fotham    fotham  !  fotham  ! 
Tha  tighinn  fotham  !  fotham  !  fotham  ! 
Tha  tighinn  fotham  eirigh. 

*  Lord  Macaulay  is  not  always  consiatent.  In  another  place  he  says  :  '  A  gentleman 
of  Skye  or  Lochaber,  whose  house  was  no  better  than  a  pigstye,  could  yet  conduct 
himself  with  all  the  graces  of  Versailles.'  Again,  '  It  would  be  a  shame  that  a  High- 
land boy  with  no  more  book  education  than  an  English  boor  should  be  compared  in- 
tellectually with  an  English  boy  of  the  same  class.'  And  again,  '  If  the  love  which 
the  Highlander  had  for  his  native  chief  could  be  transferred  to  his  lawful  sovereign 
what  a  gain  that  would  be  for  England  1 ' 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  JACOBITE  EISINGS     337 

Tha  cuid  's  an  Fhraing  's  an  Eadailt  diu 
Tha  cuid  an  Eilean  Bheagrum  diu 
'S  nar^bheil  latha  teagaisg  nach  bi 
Trend  an  Cillpheadair  diu. 

Tha  tighinn  f  otham  !  f  otham !  f  otham  ! 
Tha  tighinn  f otham  !  fotham  !  fotham ! 
Tha  tighinn  fotham !  fotham  !  fotham  ! 
Tha  tighinn  fotham  eirigh.' 

*  There 's  many  a  haughty  maiden 
To  whom  becomes  the  *  earasaid ' 
From  Monkstown  to  Barra  Sound 
Deeply  bound  in  love  of  thee. 

Methinks  !  methinks  !  methinks ! 
Methinks!  methinks!  methinks! 
Methinks!  methinks!  methinks! 

Methinks  to  rise  and  wield  the  claymore. 

There  are  some  in  France  and  Italy 
There  are  some  in  Isle  of  Beagrum 
Nor  is  there  a  preaching  day 
But  is  in  Killpheadair  a  troop  of  them. 

Methinks  !  methinks  !  methinks  ! 
Methinks  !  methinks  !  methinks  ! 
Methinks  !  methinks !  methinks  ! 

Methinks  to  rise  and  wield  the  claymore.' 


When  Mr.  John  Macaulay  heard  that  the  Prince  had  left 
Corrodal  for  Stornoway  he  sent  a  messenger  to  his  father, 
Mr.  Aulay  Macaulay,  minister  of  Harris.  Mr.  Aulay 
Macaulay  and  his  five  sons  were  strong  anti-Jacobites  and 
as  strong  pro-Williamites.  He  heard  that  the  Prince  was 
in  Scalpay,  a  low-lying,  rocky,  mossy  island  upon  the  east 
side  of  Harris.  He  and  some  relatives  of  his  own  and  of  his 
wife  hurried  away  at  midnight  to  secure  the  Prince.  The 
Prince  was  living  in  the  house  of  Mr.  Donald  Campbell, 
tacksman  of  Scalpay,  a  descendant  of  the  House  of  Argyll. 
Mr.  Donald  Campbell  was  exceptionally  big  and  powerful, 
and  the  greatest  swordsman  in  the  Isles,  whether,  as  the 
narrator  said — le  claidheamh  cul  no  le  claidheamh  cruachain 

VOL.  VI.  Y 


338  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

— with  back  sword  or  hip  sword — le  claidheamh  mor  no 
le  claidheamh  beag — with  big  sword  or  small  sword — 
le  claidheamh  da-laimh  no  le  claidheamh  leth-laimh — 
with  two-handed  sword  or  with  one-handed  sword — le 
claidheamh  cul  no  le  claidheamh  leis — with  back  sword  or 
thigh  sword.  He  was  generous  and  hospitable,  and 
patient  too,  till  roused,  but  when  roused  like  Naois  : — 

'  B  'i  choimeas  an  fhairge  gharg.* 
*  His  likeness  was  the  wild  ocean.' 

'  Ann  an  glasadh  graidh  na  camhanaich ' — in  the  beloved 
grey  dawn  of  the  morning,  a  messenger  came  in  to  tell  Donald 
Campbell  that  a  boat  from  Mobhag  a  Chuain — Movaig  of  the 
Ocean — was  making  for  Scalpay.  Donald  Campbell  hurried 
down  to  meet  the  boat  with  his  claymore  in  his  hand. 
This  was  the  minister  of  Harris,  Mr.  Aulay  Macaulay,  and 
some  relatives. 

'  What  is  the  reason  for  this  rare  visit  to  this  for- 
gotten island,  Mr.  Aulay  ?  '  said  Donald  Campbell.  '  We 
have  heard  that  you  have  got  the  Prince  in  Scalpay, 
and  we  have  come  to  seize  him.'  '  Yes,  the  Prince  is 
in  my  house,  but  before  a  hair  of  his  head  is  hurt  it 
wiU  be  over  my  prostrate  body.  I  am  as  much  against 
the  Stuarts  as  you  are,  Mr.  Aulay,  and  I  would  fight  them 
in  the  field,  but  the  Prince  is  foodless,  homeless,  and  friend- 
less, and  alone  in  my  house,  and  the  first  man  among 
you  who  comes  ashore  to  seize  him  I  will  cleave  to  the 
ground.  I  care  not  lay  or  cleric,  courtier  or  cloisterer.' 
And  with  that  Donald  Campbell  handled  his  huge  sword  and 
fingered  its  keen  blade  as  if  to  make  sure  that  all  was  right. 

AU  in  the  boat  knew  that  Donald  Campbell's  temper 
was  wild  when  roused,  that  his  arm  was  strong  when 
raised,  and  that  his  sword  was  powerful  when  unsheathed, 
and  they  discreetly  refrained  from  landing. 

On  returning  from  his  fruitless  visit  to  Stornoway,  the 
Prince  called  to  see  his  benefactor  Donald  Campbell. 
He  found,  however,  that  Donald  Campbell  had  had  to  flee  to 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  JACOBITE  RISINGS     339 

the  mountains  of  Harris,  where  he  had  to  remain  in  exposure 
for  five  months  because  of  the  shelter  he  had  given  the 
Prince  for  five  nigh£s. 


Sanais  a  Phrionnsa 

The  *arm  dearg,'  red  army,  were  in  search  of  Prince 
Charhe,  but  were  never  able  to  seize  him.  As  the  *  deargan- 
aich,'  red  ones,  searched  for  the  Prince  the  people  watched 
for  the  *  dearganaich '  and  warned  the  Prince. 

The  Prince  was  once  in  a  glen  in  Kintail  [the  reciter 
could  not  remember  the  name]. 

The  *  dearganaich '  had  a  piper,  and  the  piper  made  the 
words  and  composed  the  air  and  played  the  warning  as 
they  neared  the  resting-place  of  the  Prince.  And  the  piper 
played  so  well  that  the  Prince  understood  the  warning  and 
escaped.  When  the  *  dearganaich '  came  up  they  found  the 
*  cos,'  cleft,  still  warm  but  the  Prince  away.  They  were 
angry  and  seized  the  piper,  and  cut  off  the  first  joints  of 
his  two  thumbs. 

*  Tha'n  f hoill  air  do  chulaibh 
Mar  a  duisg  thu,  f  hir  ruaidh 
Tha'n  fhoill  air  do  chulaibh 
Mar  a  duisg  thu  gu  luath. 

Mar  a  duisg !  mar  a  duisg ! 
Mar  a  duisg  thu  fhir  ruaidh ! 
Mar  a  duisg  !  mar  a  duisg ! 
Mar  a  duisg  thu  gu  luath  ! 

T'aghaidh  ris  an  aonaich 
A  ghaolaich  fhir  ruaidh ! 
T'aghaidh  ris  an  aonaich 
A  ghaolaich  gu  luath ! 

An  t-aonach  !  an  t-aonach ! 
A  ghaolaich  fhir  ruaidh  ! 
An  t-aonach  !  an  t-aonach ! 
A  ghaolaich  gu  luath  ! ' 


340  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

'  Danger  is  behind  thee 
If  thou  wake  not,  red  man  ! 
Danger  is  behind  thee 
If  thou  wake  not,  and  soon. 

If  thou  wake  not !  if  thou  wake  not ! 
If  thou  wake  not,  red  man  ! 
If  thou  wake  not !  if  thou  wake  not ! 
If  thou  wake  not,  and  soon. 

Thy  face  to  the  hills. 
Thou  beloved  red  man  ! 
Thy  face  to  the  hills. 
Thou  beloved  one,  and  soon. 

To  the  hills !  to  the  hills ! 
Thou  beloved  red  man  ! 
To  the  hills !  to  the  hills  ! 
Beloved  one,  and  soon.' 


Donald  Livingstone 

Donald  Livingstone,  Bun-a-mhuilinn,  Morvern,  was 
of  the  Livingstones  of  Achnacree,  Benderloch.  These 
Livingstones  of  Achnacree  had  been  the  keepers  of  the 
Royal  Forest  of  Dail-an-eas  till  this  was  wrested  from  them 
by  the  Macdonalds  of  Glencoe. 

The  Livingstones  of  Achnacree  were  of  the  same  line 
as  the  Livingstones  of  Bachuill,  Lismore,  keepers  of 
the  Staff  of  Saint  Moluag.  The  two  families  separated 
many  centuries  ago,  yet  they  still  resemble  one  another, 
physically,  mentally,  and  characteristically.  Dr.  David 
Livingstone  was  of  the  Lismore  Livingstones  and  resembled 
that  family  so  closely  that  the  late  Baron  Alexander  Living- 
stone, Bachuill,  was  taken  for  him  several  times,  to  the  great 
confusion  of  the  singularly  shy,  modest  Baron.  Similarly 
the  late  Robert  Livingstone  of  the  Achnacree  Livingstones 
had  been  mistaken  for  the  famous  missionary,  and  that  by 
men  and  women  who  had  seen  and  spoken  to  the  great 
traveller.  Honest  Robert  Livingstone  said  that  he  had 
never  been  so  much  put  out  as  when  a  stout,  elderly  lady 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  JACOBITE  EISINGS     341 

tourist  on  Oban  pier  insisted  upon  kissing  his  hand  '  once 
more  after  his  great  travels.'  Bystanders  who  knew  the 
facts  were  bursting  t)ut  in  laughter  at  Eobert  Livingstone's 
speechless  confusion  ! 

So  much  for  the  tenacity  of  family  characteristics. 

Donald  Livingstone  of  Bun-a-mhuilinn  was  eighteen 
years  of  age  in  the  year  of  CuUoden.  He  was  very 
stout,  strong,  active,  and  hairy,  and  he  was  known  as 
DomhuU  MoUach — Hairy  Donald.  There  was  kinship  and 
f  ostership  between  the  Lismore  and  Benderloch  Livingstones 
and  the  Stuarts  of  Appin.  Donald  Livingstone  from  Morvern 
joined  his  friends  the  Stewarts  of  Appin  and  fought  with 
them  at  CuUoden,  as  did  also  his  clansman  Donald  Living- 
stone from  Lismore. 

The  sibyl  of  the  place  predicted  that  nine  Donalds  would 
fall  carrying  the  blue  banner  of  the  Stewarts.  The  Car- 
michaels  were  the  standard-bearers  of  the  Stewarts,  and  the 
first  Donald  to  fall  was  Donald  Carmichael,  and  seven  other 
Donalds  fell  in  succession. 

When  the  eighth  Donald  fell  Donald  Livingstone  took 
up  the  banner,  and  tearing  it  from  the  staff,  wrapped  the 
banner  round  his  body.  He  had  hardly  done  this  when  a 
musket  ball  struck  him  on  the  breast  and  knocked  him 
down.  The  folds  of  the  silk  broke  the  force  of  the  bullet, 
thereby  saving  the  life  of  Donald  Livingstone,  although 
the  impact  knocked  him  down  and  rendered  him  senseless. 
Donald  would  never  show  the  bullet  mark  to  any  one,  nor 
was  the  bullet  mark  even  seen  by  any  one  till  he 
died.  He  never  knew  how  long  he  lay  breathless  and 
speechless  upon  the  ground,  but  when  he  opened  his  eyes 
he  saw  a  riderless  steed  rushing  down  in  his  direction, 
trampling  upon  the  dead  and  the  dying  in  its  wild  career. 

When  the  steed  was  nearly  upon  him,  Donald  Living- 
stone exerted  all  his  strength  and  seizing  the  bridle  sprang 
into  the  empty  saddle  of  the  frightened  horse,  and  was  out 
of  the  luckless  field  with  all  possible  haste. 

Two  English  troopers  saw  Donald  Livingstone  riding 


342  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

away  from  the  field,  and  they  followed  him.  When  he  saw 
that  his  exhausted  horse  was  unable  to  save  him  from  his 
pursuers  he  wheeled  round  and  faced  them.  The  nearest 
trooper  aimed  a  blow  at  his  head.  Donald  Livingstone, 
already  a  good  swordsman,  parried  the  blow,  and  coming 
down  upon  the  head  of  his  opponent  clove  him  to  the  chin. 
The  second  trooper  was  about  to  join  in,  but  when  he 
saw  the  fate  of  his  companion  he  wheeled  about  and 
fled. 

Donald  Livingstone  did  not  know  what  to  do  with  this 
second  troop  horse  now  upon  his  hand,  whether  to  leave  it 
or  to  take  it.  He  thought,  however,  that  he  might  see 
some  needful  fugitive  like  himself,  so  he  led  the  horse  and 
renewed  his  journey.  Upon  going  round  the  first  knoll  on 
his  way  he  heard  the  call  of  a  familiar  voice  from  a  cleft 
in  some  scarred  rocks  behind  him.  He  turned,  and  this 
was  a  neighbour  badly  wounded  and  bleeding  profusely. 
Donald  stanched  the  bleeding  as  best  he  could  and  helped 
his  friend  to  mount  the  horse  and  the  two  rode  on. 

Upon  reaching  a  secluded  corrie  they  dismounted  to 
rest  their  tired  bodies  and  their  wearied  horses.  They  made 
di'leum — fetters  of  withes — and  placing  these  upon  their 
horses,  left  them  to  graze  while  they  themselves  went  up  the 
hill  and  hid  behind  big  boulders  beyond  the  reach  of  troopers. 

By  and  by  a  troop  of  cavalry  rode  along  the  way  below 
them.  Hearing  the  noise  of  their  companions,  the  two 
horses  in  the  fetters  neighed  again  and  again. 

The  troopers  suddenly  stopped  and  listened  and  looked 
around,  but  could  see  nothing.  The  neighing  echoed  round 
the  corrie  among  the  rocks  and  the  English  troopers  turned 
and  fled,  evidently  fearing  that  they  were  ambuscaded. 

The  two  youths  made  their  way  home,  resting  by  day 
and  riding  by  night  till  they  reached  Morvern.  They 
betook  themselves  to  the  hills,  resting  in  caves  by  day  and 
getting  food  from  friends  by  night,  and  shifting  from  place 
to  place  to  avoid  the  *  red  coats.'  Upon  several  occasions 
they  would  have  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  soldiery  had 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  JACOBITE  EISINGS     343 

it  not  been  for  the  daring  courage  and  resourceful  actions 
of  Donald  Livingstone. 

As  the  night  lengthened  and  the  day  shortened,  the 
patience  of  Donald  Livingstone  shortened  also.  He  moved 
about  ever3rwhere  in  search  of  news  of  the  Prince  or  news 
of  any  kind,  but  he  could  get  none  save  of  the  brutalities 
of  the  soldiers  and  of  the  woes  of  the  people. 

Failing  to  hear  anything  of  the  Prince  in  Morvern,  Donald 
Livingstone  resolved  to  swim  from  Morvern  to  Mull  in  the 
hope  of  getting  news.  He  was  a  good  swimmer  and  had 
crossed  and  recrossed  the  Sound  of  Mull  many  times  carry- 
ing his  clothes  behind  his  neck.  Several  times  he  had  nar- 
rowly escaped  being  shot  in  mistake  for  a  seal  by  passing 
ships.  Upon  one  occasion  a  bullet  grazed  his  ear.  A  second 
bullet  might  have  ended  his  career  had  he  not  risen  up  in 
the  sea  and  shown  himself  to  the  astonished  people  on 
board  the  vessel. 

In  swimming  from  Morvern  to  Mull  Donald  Livingstone 
came  dangerously  near  a  warship  passing  up  through  the 
Sound  of  Mull.  The  night  was  calm  and  clear,  but  occasion- 
ally cloudy,  and  before  he  was  aware  of  her  presence  the 
strong  tidal  current  of  the  Sound  carried  him  towards  a 
ship-of-war  moving  westward  to  join  the  many  other  war- 
vessels  in  search  of  the  Prince. 

Upon  landing  in  Mull,  Donald  Livingstone  made  his  way 
to  Drum-fionn  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Tobermory.  From 
this  vantage-ground  he  saw  two  ships-of-war  towing  in  two 
other  ships-of-war,  bringing  news  of  their  own  defeat  and 
of  the  escape  of  the  Prince.  These  were  the  two  English 
war-vessels  which  the  French  war-vessel  defeated  and 
eluded  in  Loch-nan-Uamh.  Much  excitement  ensued  in 
Tobermory  over  the  news  that  the  Prince  had  escaped,  and 
it  took  the  daring  Donald  Livingstone  no  time  to  be  in  the 
midst  of  the  commotion. 

Donald  retraced  his  steps,  and  recrossed  the  Sound. 
This  was  the  most  exciting  and  perilous  journey.  In 
mid- channel    he    encountered    a   large    shoal    of    herring 


344  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

followed  by  a  huge  whale,  blowing  loudly  and  throwing^up 
volumes  of  water  high  in  the  air.  In  after  life  Donald 
Livingstone  confessed  that  the  whale  frightened  him. 
He  was  wondering  how  he  could  escape  if  the  whale  were 
to  swallow  him.  Would  he  be  expelled  from  the  stomach 
of  the  whale  as  Jonah  had  been  ?  This  and  many  other 
questions  passed  through  his  mind  while  he  was  near  the 
whale. 

Donald  Livingstone  continued  to  hide  himseK  as 
before,  gradually  coming  more  and  more  into  the  open  as 
the  soldiers  were  gradually  withdrawn. 

The  banner  of  the  Stewarts  had  been  safely  concealed, 
no  one  knowing  where  it  was  except  Donald's  own  family. 

Before  long  this  daring  youth  set  out  for  Appin, 
carrying  the  precious  banner  next  his  skin  round  his 
body,  and  riding  the  horse  of  the  slain  trooper.  He  gave 
the  flag  into  the  hands  of  the  chief  of  the  Stewarts 
of  Appin,  now  bowed  down  with  age  and  sorrow.  He 
then  went  and  gave  the  English  troop  horse  to  James 
Stewart,  better  known  as  Seumas  a  Ghlinne — James  of  the 
Glen.  This  was  in  acknowledgment  of  a  kindness  shown 
by  James  Stewart  to  Donald  Livingstone's  father  in  sending 
him  the  year  before  a  bag  of  barley  for  seed  corn.^ 

Things  had  hardly  settled  down,  and  the  soldiery  had 
hardly  been  withdrawn,  when  Donald  Livingstone  began  to 
cater  for  the  garrisons  of  Fort  William  and  of  Fort  Augustus. 
He  bought  cattle  from  the  people  and  sold  them  to  the 

^  It  was  this  James  Stewart  who  was  executed  for  the  murder  of  Colin  Campbell, 
Glenuir.  It  is  a  known  fact,  however,  that  it  was  not  James  Stewart  but  another 
Stewart  who  fired  the  fatal  shot.  A  secret  compact  was  made  among  six  leading 
Stewart  men  to  kill  Colin  Campbell,  factor  upon  the  forfeited  estates,  for  his 
evictions  and  crueities  towards  the  tenants.  Lots  were  drawn,  and  the  lot  fell  upon 
a  certain  Stewart  gentleman.  James  Stewart  was  suspected,  tried,  and  executed.  The 
real  culprit  pressed  to  be  allowed  to  declare  the  guilty  and  to  free  the  innocent, 
James  Stewart,  however,  would  not  listen  to  this,  declaring  that  he  was  in  the  faction 
and  that  he  might  as  well  suffer  the  penalty  as  any  other  one  of  the  party.  The 
writer  has  this  from  a  high-placed  relative  of  the  Stewarts  concerned. 

The  trial  of  James  Stewart  was  one  of  the  most  famous  criminal  trials  of  the 
time.    Stevenson,  who  lived  in  Appin  for  a  time,  deals  with  it  in  Kidnapped. 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  JACOBITE  EISINGS     345 

garrisons  and  continued  this  trade  during  many  years.  He 
became  a  favourite  with  the  officers  and  men  of  the  garrisons 
from  his  daring  courage  and  absolute  honesty,  and  although 
they  knew  his  history  they  never  molested  him. 

Notwithstanding  his  many  narrow  escapes  by  sea  and 
land,  Donald  Livingstone  lived  to  be  an  old  man,  dying 
peaceably  in  bed  at  the  age  of  eighty-eight.  He  never  had 
an  iUness  and  never  wore  trousers — always  the  kilt.  His 
makeshifts  in  evading  the  law  against  the  kilt  and  the 
tartan  were  innumerable.  How  he  escaped  was  a  miracle 
to  all,  and  could  only  be  accounted  for  by  his  dauntless 
courage  and  honest  nature,  which  rendered  him  a  favourite 
with  officers  and  men  of  the  garrisons. 

Dr.  Macleod,  Morvern,  remembered  Donald  Livingstone 
and  many  of  his  daring  deeds  and  his  honourable  traits. 
Dr.  Macleod  said  that  he  used  to  sit  at  his  door  in  the 
coldest  weather  with  a  scant  tartan  kilt  over  his  knees  and 
with  a  broad  blue  bonnet  over  his  head,  bright  and 
cheerful  and  happy  to  the  last.  He  was  never  inclined  to 
fight  his  own  battles  over  again,  but  always  ready  to 
tell  of  the  good  deeds  of  other  men.  Every  one  had  a 
word  of  loving  admiration  for  the  daring,  honest  Donald 
Livingstone,  known  as  Domhull  MoUach. 

It  may  be  mentioned  that  the  blue  banner  of  the  Stewarts 
of  Appin  is  in  the  possession  of  a  Stewart  of  Appin  living  in 
Edinburgh.  The  colour  of  the  beautiful  silk  is  much  faded 
and  the  cloth  is  full  of  bullet  holes  and  bloodstains. 


Colonel  Macleod  of  Talisgeir 

Colonel  Macleod  of  Talisgeir  was  a  scion  of  the  Macleods 
of  Dunveagain.  In  the  autumn  of  1773  Dr.  Johnson, 
James  Boswell  and  Donald  Maclean  of  Coll  visited  him  at 
Talisgeir,  and  were  hospitably  entertained. 

Colonel  Macleod  had  just  retired  from  the  Dutch  service 


346  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

when  he  was  appointed  to  the  command  of  the  militia 
searching  for  Prince  Charlie  through  the  Western  Isles. 
When  it  became  known  that  the  Prince  had  left  the  Isles 
and  was  now  on  the  mainland  the  search  in  the  Isles  relaxed 
and  Colonel  Macleod  was  able  to  come  home  to  see  to  matters 
requiring  his  attention. 

Soon  after  coming  home  he  and  some  men  were  '  a 
doradh ' — hand-line  fishing — in  the  open  bay  of  TaHsgeir. 

They  were  heaving  up  the  '  cruaidh,'  '  cailleach ' — stone 
anchor — of  the  boat  preparatory  to  leaving  for  home  when  a 
French  frigate  under  full  sail  bore  down  upon  them.  The 
frigate  was  thrown  up  in  the  wind  near  the  boat,  while 
those  on  board  held  out  pieces  of  silver  and  pointing  to 
the  fish  in  the  boat  spoke  in  French.  Colonel  Macleod 
repHed  in  French,  which  pleased  and  surprised  the  people  of 
the  French  ship. 

The  fish  upon  the  floor  of  the  boat  was  thrown  up  on  the 
deck  of  the  ship,  and  Colonel  Macleod  and  his  men  were 
asked  on  board.  Colonel  Macleod  went  on  board  but  he 
sent  his  men  up  to  Talisgeir  House  for  milk,  cream,  and 
butter,  fruit,  vegetables,  and  mutton.  Upon  the  return 
of  the  men  Colonel  Macleod  left,  but  before  he  left  the 
captain  of  the  frigate  said,  '  We  are  in  search  of  Prince 
Charlie,  but  know  not  where  to  find  him  nor  which  way 
to  go.'  '  I,  too,  am  in  search  of  Prince  Charlie,  but  from 
a  different  motive.  But,'  said  Colonel  Macleod,  placing  his 
finger  on  Loch-nan-Uamh  on  the  chart  before  him,  *  if  you 
go  you  may  hear  of  something  to  your  liking.  That  is 
outwith  my  command,  and  more  I  must  not  say.' 

The  French  frigate  set  all  sail  and  made  for  Loch-nan- 
Uamh,  going  up  to  the  head  of  the  loch.  Here  she  remained 
some  days  to  enable  the  Prince  and  his  followers  to  come  on 
board.     One  hundred  and  thirty  men  joined  the  Prince. 

Two  English  men-of-war  followed  the  French  man-of- 
war  into  Loch-nan-Uamh,  watching  all  that  occurred  the 
while.  Two  other  English  ships  of  war  remained  in  the 
open  sea  beyond.     The  Prince  and  all  with  him  were  de- 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  JACOBITE  KISINGS     347 

termined  to  die  rather  than  be  captured,  and  every  man  on 
board  was  prepared  to  fight  to  the  death. 

When  the  French  vessel  sailed  out  of  Loch-nan-Uamh 
on  Sunday  the  20th  September  1746  the  first  English  ship 
fired  at  her,  doing  no  damage,  however.  The  French  frigate 
returned  the  fire  of  the  English  ship,  breaking  her  main- 
mast, bringing  down  mast-yards  and  rigging,  and  injuring 
many  men.  When  the  French  ship  came  opposite,  the 
second  English  frigate  fired,  doing  no  harm  beyond  a  shot 
through  the  mainsail.  The  French  ship  returned  the  fire, 
smashing  the  rudder  and  rendering  the  second  English 
vessel  as  unmanageable  as  the  first.  The  two  English  ships 
in  the  open  sea  contented  themselves  with  firing  at  long 
range.  The  French  frigate  sailed  out  and  was  lost  to  sight 
beyond  Barra. 

The  place  of  embarkation  and  both  sides  of  Loch-nan- 
Uamh  were  crowded  with  people,  many  from  long  distances 
come  to  see  the  last  of  the  Prince  and  the  last  of  those  who 
were  nearest  and  dearest  to  them  in  the  world.  Wailing 
and  sorrowing  ran  through  the  crowds  who  surmounted 
every  knoll  and  hill  and  vantage-ground  along  the  sides 
of  Loch-nan-Uamh — the  weeping  and  sobbing,  relieved 
now  and  again  by  cheer  upon  cheer  when  the  friendly 
French  ship-of-war,  carrying  away  its  precious  freight  for 
ever,  made  good  its  escape  and  injured  its  opponents.  The 
people  lingered  about,  some  for  several  days,  unable  to 
leave  the  scene  of  so  many  broken  hearts,  of  so  many  broken 
hopes. 

All  this  and  much  more  was  told  the  writer  by  the  late 
Robert  Livingstone,  the  grandson  of  Donald  Livingstone, 
who  rescued  the  Stewart  banner  at  CuUoden. 

Robert  Livingstone  said  that  when  a  boy  he  had  seen 
an  old  man  from  Moideart  in  his  father's  house  at  Bun-a- 
mhuilinn,  in  Morvern,  who  had  been  present  on  the  occasion. 
The  old  man  said  that  the  scene  was  affecting  and  indescrib- 
able, the  grief  and  the  joy,  the  tears  and  the  smiles,  the 
sorrow   and   the   gladness,   the   distress   and   the   delight 


348  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

alternately  swaying  the  people  from  hill  to  hill,  from 
summit  to  summit  along  the  loch  like  successive  clouds  over 
the  sun. 

The  old  man  from  Moideart  remained  several  days  in 
the  house  of  the  father  of  Robert  Livingstone.  He  was  f uU  of 
stories  of  the  Prince  and  of  his  followers,  and  of  the  scenes 
that  he  himself  had  witnessed  in  the  long  ago  of  his  boyhood. 

Robert  Livingstone  remembered  many  of  the  old  man's 
descriptive  narratives  and  rehearsed  them  with  ease  and 
accuracy. 

In  corroboration  of  the  cannon  firing  of  these  ships-of- 
war  it  may  be  mentioned  that  cannon  balls  have  been  found 
in  the  near  neighbourhood  of  Loch-nan-Uamh,  and  in  such 
positions  as  left  no  doubt  of  the  balls  having  been  driven 
into  their  places  by  great  force. 


DERMAID  AND  GRAINN^J 
Donald  A.  Mackenzie 


Hearken  !  a  space  ....  the  bard  began  his  lay 

In  the  red  peat-glare  of  a  Ceilidh  throng 
Grown  mute,  while,  like  a  bounding  stag  at  bay, 

The  night-wind  faltered •  'Tis  of  Finn's  great  wrong 

I  sing,  and  Dermaid,  who  the  boar  did  slay. 

And  Grainn^  false — ah  !  'tis  the  woeful  song ! — 
I  sing  the  days  when  Finn  and  all  his  men 
Dwelt  by  Ben  Goolban  in  the  Fairy  Glen. 

When  Finn,  far-famed  for  wisdom  and  great  deeds, 
A  spouse  would  seek  through  Erin  far  and  wide. 

On  Grainnfe's  neck  he  put  the  amber  beads — 
Green-robed  she  rose  before  him  in  her  pride. 

Her  sire  was  King  of  Carmag  of  the  Steeds ; 
And  ne'er  to  Alban  came  a  lovelier  bride. 

Great  feasts  the  Fians  gave  for  seven  days. 

By  night  the  bale-fires  on  the  bens  would  blaze. 


DERMAID  AND  GRAINNE  349 

And  none  would  be  more  merry  at  the  board 
Than  Dermaid :  he  was  first  in  mirthful  jest — 

The  nimble-wetted !  .  .  .  Loud  their  laughter  roared — 
Gallant  was  he  to  every  stranger  guest ; 

He  honoured  all,  but  honoured  most  his  lord — 
Of  heroes,  he  the  bravest  and  the  best — 

But  woe !  to  Dermaid  and  his  mighty  chief 

'Twas  Grainne  brought  to  them  the  bitter  grief. 

Now  Dermaid  was  the  fairest  of  all  men ; 

Yellow  as  whin-bloom  was  his  clustering  hair ; 
His  eyes  were  bluer  than  the  far-oflf  ben, 

And  soft  as  when  it  shines  in  noontide  air ; 
On  his  white  brow  a  love-spot  burned,  and  when 

A  woman  would  behold  it,  she  would  bear 
For  him  the  love  so  passionate  and  great. 
That  Dermaid  knew  'twould  be  his  evil  fate. 

And  ever  he  from  morn  till  eventide. 

In  sunshine  or  in  storm,  a  helmet  wore. 
The  secret  charm  of  fateful  love  to  hide— 

And  sooth  !  it  quivered  and  was  red  as  gore. 
The  substance  of  his  manly  strength  and  pride — 

The  essence  of  fierce  love  was  at  its  core ; 
And,  save  his  fairy-mother,  woman  ne'er 
Beheld  that  spot  upon  his  forehead  fair. 

Lo  !  when  the  Fians  hunted  far  away, 

A  warrior  on  ward  would  wait  behind ; 
And  so  to  Dermaid  would  there  come  a  day 

When  he  must  needs  have  care  of  woman-kind. 
'Twas  on  a  drowsy  noon  in  midmost  May — 

A  spell  of  sleep  had  fallen  on  the  wind — 
As  he  would  stoop  to  drink  beside  a  brook. 
And  from  his  head  his  heavy  helmet  took. 

Then  weary  was  his  fate  and  dark  his  lot ! 

For  nigh  him  Grainn^  came  with  copper  hair — 
Ah  !  when  her  eyes  beheld  yon  beauty-spot. 

She  loved  him  with  the  passion  of  despair — 
Sudden  and  fierce  !  .  .  .  .  And  Finn  she  then  forgot, 

And  all  her  vows.  .  .  .  She  cried  to  Dermaid  there, 
'  Oh  !  I  am  stricken  with  deep  love  for  thee, — 
My  strong,  my  fair  one !  thou  must  fly  with  me  ! ' 


850  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

He  heard  her  in  his  grief,  and  fain  would  pass 
Before  her,  with  foreboding,  all  dismayed — 

Ah  !  what  will  be  more  plenteous  than  grass  ? — 
The  dewdrops  that  are  many  on  each  blade.  .  .  . 

So  rose  his  sorrows  in  a  countless  mass — 

Each  sorrow  with  the  bitterest  tears  was  lade — 

He  heard  with  anguish,  ringing  in  his  ears, 

His  friends*  reproaches,  sharper  than  their  spears. 

'  Nay,  nay  ! '  he  cried,  '  I  will  not  with  thee  go, 
For  Honour,  white  and  deep,  will  with  me  dwell — 

'Tis  whiter  than  Ben  Goolban's  winter  snow, 
And  deeper  than  the  heart  of  yon  deep  well. 

Then  she  to  him,  '  Alas  !  I  love  thee  so.  .  .  . 
My  wish  be  laid  upon  thee  like  a  spell ! 

All  heavy  is  the  love  I  '11  bear  for  thee — 

Whiter  than  fire  and  deeper  than  the  sea.' 

*  I  ne'er  will  go,'  he  cried,  '  nor  will  thee  take 
In  softness  or  in  hardness ;  faith  or  doubt ; 

I  will  not  take  thee  for  thy  false  love's  sake 

From  house,  from  plain,  within  nor  yet  without — 

On  horse-back  or  on  foot.  ...  Ha !  would  I  break 
My  oath  of  Fealty  and  wise  Finn  flout  1 ' 

Then  Dermaid  fled  unto  a  place  apart, 

And  reared  a  house  with  cold  and  heavy  heart'. 

But  what  is  hotter  than  the  flames  that  blind  ? 

And  fiercer  than  the  bale-fire  on  the  ben  ? 

A  woman's  love  that  will  not  be  resigned, 

A  woman's  will  with  conquest  in  her  ken  ! 
And  what  will  dart  more  swiftly  than  the  wind  1 

A  woman's  thoughts  that  are  betwixt  two  men  ! — 
So  on  a  morn  that  was,  yon  false  one  sped 
To  Dermaid  calling  .  .  .  '  I  am  here  ! '  he  said. 

'  Then  fly  with  me  ! '  she  'd  urge  him  in  her  pride. 

But  once  again,  *  Nay,  nay  ! '  to  her  he  swore — 
Now  she  was  nor  within  or  yet  outside.  .  .  . 

She  waited  'twixt  the  two  sides  of  the  door. 
On  foot  she  came  not,  nor  a  horse  did  ride — 

A  great  black  goat  the  love-sick  lady  bore — 
Then  Dermaid  knew  her  spells  were  wrought,  and  they 
Together  fled  towards  the  dying  day. 


I 


DERMAID  AND  GEAINNE 

Three  days  and  nights  they  fled.     And  Dennaid  cried, 

'  There  is  no  place  to  which  we  need  may  go — 
There  is  no  spot  in  Alban,  woe  betide  ! 

That  Finn,  who  hath  the  knowledge,  would  not  know- 
Wise  Finn  whom  I  have  stricken  in  his  pride — 

Deep  is  his  grief  and  heavy  is  his  blow  ! 
When  he  comes  nigh,  he  will  me  slay,'  he  said. 
*E'en  now  his  curse  is  falling  on  my  head.' 

But  what  is  nimbler  than  the  huntsman's  feet  1 — 

The  cunning  of  an  evil  woman's  mind ! 
For  Grainn^  to  him  whispered,  smiling  sweet, 

'  We  '11  to  a  Carrick  go,  for  who  would  find 
Our  Carrick  midst  the  score  I  could  repeat ! — 

Let  Finn  make  search  till  he  be  old  and  blind 
He  will  not  find  our  sure  and  safe  retreat ! ' — 
So  first  they  went  to  Carrick  of  the  Stag 
And  reared  a  house  below  the  lonely  crag. 

When  Finn  from  his  long  hunting  had  returned 
And  Grainne  sought  and  Dermaid  sought  in  vain, 

His  heart  with  hottest  wrath  within  him  burned — 
And  keener  than  the  spear-thrust  was  his  pain. 

'0  Dermaid,  0  brave  Dermaid,  who  me  spurned. 
Whom  I  with  love  shall  ne'er  behold  again — 

Mine  eyes,'  he  wailed,  *my  tongue,  this  heart  of  me — 

Oh,  have  they  e'er  done  aught  but  honour  thee  1 ' 

'Twas  thus,  with  lamentation,  Finn  went  forth — 
He  with  his  Fians  went  to  seek  the  twain. 

He  hunted  in  the  south  and  in  the  north. 
He  hunted  east  and  west,  o'er  hill  and  plain ; 

And  ever  would  he  blow  the  Horn  of  Worth — 
'  Ye  gods ! '  he  cried,  that  Dermaid  had  been  slain 

And  ever  would  he  sigh  by  day  and  night 

For  her  who  never  took  a  step  aright 


351 


II 

Now  Dermaid  in  his  grief  to  Finn  was  true. 
While  Grainn^  held  him  in  her  evil  spell — 

Her  love  he  spurned ;  and  in  her  wrath  she  knew 
Love  is  a  thing  no  mortal  can  compel — 

Then  shame  came  o'er  her ;  .  .  .  from  her  eyes,  as  blue 
As  hyacinth  bells,  the  silent  teardrops  fell 

And  dewed  her  rowan  cheeks  .  .  .  crouching  in  gloom. 

Her  hair  came  o'er  her  bosom  like  gold  broom. 


352  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

She  watched  him  early  and  she  watched  him  late, 
Nor  ever  smile  would  glimmer  o'er  his  face — 

The  love  that  is  disdained  is  fierce  as  hate, 
And  seven  times  fierce  the  love  that  is  disgrace  ! 

So  one  black  night  she  cursed  her  evil  fate, 
Finn  cursed  she  deep,  and  cursed  she  all  his  race — 

Then  fell  on  Dermaid,  for  she  sought  his  life. 

And  in  his  thigh  she  plunged  the  two-edged  knife. 

Then  Dermaid  fled,  the  cold  knife  in  his  thigh  .  .  . 

He  crept  from  hole  to  hole  in  his  despair ; 
For  he  was  just  alive,  and  sought  to  die, 

And  of  his  wound  he  would  take  little  care — ■ 
His  heart  wound  was  more  deep.  ...  So  would  he  lie 

Moaning  a  lot  too  black  for  him  to  bear — 
Sooth  !  in  a  fearsome  dream  he  Finn  did  see 
Writhing  in  flames  in  his  fierce  agony. 

He  screamed.  .  .  .  And  from  his  eyes  the  vision  swept — 
And  screamed  a  heron  lone  beside  the  wave. 

Then  Grainn^  in  the  cold  dawn  came,  and  crept 
To  kneel  beside  him,  weeping  in  the  cave. 

'All  night,'  she  cried,  'I've  sought  for  thee  nor  slept, 
0  Dermaid,  unto  whom  my  love  I  gave. 

Why  came  yon  heron's  scream  to  answer  thine  1 ' 

'  Its  feet  are  frozen  to  a  stone  like  mine  I ' 

Then  shame  was  on  her.  ...  He  would  stare  aghast — 
'  Where  is  thy  knife  ?  that  thou  may'st  eat,'  she  'd  sigh, 

'  Of  bread  and  flesh,  for  bitter  is  thy  fast.' 
'Twas  he  made  answer  with  the  anguish 'd  cry — 

*  Search  in  the  sheath  where  thou  didst  put  it  last ! ' 
And  when  she  drew  the  sharp  knife  from  his  thigh. 

That  was  the  greatest  shame  she  ever  took. 

And  in  his  eyes  she  would  not  dare  to  look. 

As  stoops  a  moaning  mother  tenderly 

To  soothe  her  dying  babe,  by  Dermaid's  side 

Grainnfe,  with  drooping  head  and  bended  knee. 

Then  sorrowed  o'er  him  there  ...  *  Alas  ! '  she  cried, 

'  I  would  the  blow  that  I  have  given  thee 
Thou  to  me  gave  instead,  and  I  had  died.  .  .  . 

If  thou  wilt  love  me  not,  oh  !  let  me  take 

Comfort  in  loving  thee  for  love's  sweet  sake.' 


DEEMAID  AND  GEAINNfi  353 


ni 

When  Dermaid's  wound  had  healed,  she  heard  him  sigh — 

'  Alas !  alas  !  of  Finn  I  will  have  fear, 
I  know  he  cometh — whither  can  I  fly  ? 

I  feel  his  presence,  for  he  will  be  near ! ' — 
To  a  more  distant  Carrick  did  they  hie. 

Towards  Glen  Elg ;  and  where  a  burn  ran  clear, 
They  found  a  cave.  .  .  .  'Twas  there  in  silent  mood 
Dermaid  would  shape  fair  vessels  cut  in  wood. 

Then  came  the  Fians  from  the  Fairy  Glen, 

For  they  would  hunt  the  fierce  and  venomous  boar — 

The  Boar  of  Mala  Lith — from  ben  to  ben — 
Full  near  to  Dermaid  came  they  by  the  shore. 

Now  down  the  burn  came  floating  from  the  glen 

Wood-cuttings  fine.  .  .  .  And  wise  Finn  paused  and  swore, 

*  The  art  is  Dermaid's  :  he  '11  have  dwelling  nigh  ! ' 

*  Ah,  nay,  he  liveth  not,'  they  made  reply. 

But  Finn  said,  '  'Tis  his  handicraft  I  see.  .  .  . 

Oh  !  wind  the  merry  blast  from  every  horn 
And  shout  the  huntsman's  call  right  lustily ; 

For  he  must  answer  make,  as  he  hath  sworn. 
From  any  place  where  he  may  chance  to  be.'  .  .  . 

Full  sweetly  was  the  call  to  Dermaid  borne  .  .  . 
But  Grainne  cried,  '  Oh,  answer  not  at  all. 
For  yon,'  she  vowed,  'will  be  the  guileful  call.' 

But  Dermaid  rose,  and  with  uplifted  horn 

Awaited  till  the  echoes  died  away. 
The  gloom  had  vanished  from  his  heart  forlorn, 

And  gleamed  the  life-blood  o'er  his  visage  grey. 
But  Grainn^  wailed,  '  Alas !  'twere  meet  to  mourn. 

For  here  is  death  that  thou  must  shun  this  day.'  .  . 

*  I  would  not  falter  from  the  hunt,'  he  cried, 

'  For  Finn  and  his  great  wrath — whate'er  betide ! ' 

His  horn  he  blew  and  gave  the  huntsman's  call, — 

The  echoes  would  repeat  it  o'er  and  o'er. 
Then  down  the  long  glen  went  the  hero  tall, 

All  nimbly  to  the  Fians  on  the  shore. 
An  angry  silence  fell  upon  them  all. — 

"Tis  thine,'  they  said,  'to  hunt  the  venomous  boar.' 
Full  many  a  hero  by  yon  boar  was  slain ! 
Who  sought  to  hunt  it  ne'er  returned  again.' 

VOL.  VI.  Z 


354  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

IV 

He  roused  the  boar  upon  the  wooded  face 
Of  fair  Ben  Eiden,  and,  with  rapid  stride, 

He  drove  it  to  a  dim  and  lonely  place 

Towards  Ben  Turk,  and  round  its  grassy  side, — 

Oh,  merry  was  his  heart  in  that  long  chase. 
His  bosom  heaving  with  the  huntsman's  pride ! 

And  from  his  horn  he  blew  the  heartsome  blast 

As  Finn  and  all  his  huntsmen  followed  fast. 

Then  turned  the  boar  ...  a  course  it  westward  made, 
Till  Dermaid  saw  Ben  Goolban — when,  ye  Fates  ! 

It  came  to  bay  in  yon  steep  mountain  glade. 

And  fought  so  fierce  that  he  was  brought  to  straits. 

His  tempered  blades  were  bootless— all  dismayed 
He  saw  them  twist  like  withered  rushy  plates. 

Then  with  his  Fairy  Sword  he  slashed  full  sore, — 

One  slash  so  fierce,  and  slew  the  venomous  boar. 

'Twas  no  revenge  for  Finn  !  ...  Ha !  all  in  vain 
Would  he  be  one  with  Dermaid.  ...  As  he  hears 

The  Fian  shouting  that  the  boar  is  slain, 

Their  words  like  wasps  come  stinging  at  his  ears  .  .  . 

He  thinks  of  Grainn^  with  a  heart  of  pain. 

And  curses  Dermaid,  lauded  by  his  peers.  .  .  . 

Black  are  his  brows  and  gloomy  are  his  eyes, 

While  cunningly  his  death  he  doth  devise. 

'  Measure  the  boar ! '  cried  Finn.  .  .  .  Full  well  he  knew 
That  Dermaid's  body  would  be  charmed  in  strife. 

And  save  upon  yon  mole  of  darkest  hue 

On  his  right  heel,  no  wound  would  end  his  life. 

*  Measure  the  boar ! '  .  .  .  Upon  its  back  there  grew 
A  venomous  spike,  sharp-pointed  like  a  knife, — 

'Twas  measured.  .  .  .  'Fifteen  feet  of  measure  good,' 

Cried  Dermaid.  .  .  .  Finn  him  heard  in  angry  mood. 

Then  cried  he  who  for  vengeance  was  full  fain, 
'  Now  measure  'gainst  the  bristles  to  the  head. 

Yon  prayer  of  thine  unto  the  king  obtain — 

Thy  choice  of  tough,  keen  spears  for  heroes  made  .  .  . 

The  jewels  of  the  warrior  proud  thou  'It  gain  ! ' — 
•  My  knife  is  my  best  jewel,'  Dermaid  said.  .  .  . 

Lo !  as  he  stepped  again,  yon  spike  would  pierce 

The  heel  of  him  who  was  in  battle  fierce. 


ii 


DERMAID  AND  GRAINNi:  355 

Then  swayed  he,  falling.  .  .  .  Like  the  stream  he  bled  .  .  . 

And  Finn  moaned  deep — his  sorrow  would  be  keen 
When  Dermaid  fell — 'Would  I  had  fall'n  instead, 

And  he  to  me  had  ne'er  a  traitor  been/ — 
But  yester-eve  the  hillock  was  so  green 

That  with  the  blood  of  Dermaid  will  be  red — 
'  0  Finn,  Finn,  give  me  water,'  he  would  sigh, 
'  A  cool  draught  from  thy  palms  .  .  .  or  else  I  die.  .  .  .' 

'  0  Dermaid,  thou  deceiver,  who  me  gave 
Yon  evil  stroke — thou,'  Finn  cried,  *  who  me  curst 

With  bitter  wrong  .  .  .  canst  thou  my  favours  crave  *? 
My  foes  are  many  and  thou  'rt  proved  the  worst !  .  .  . 

No  water  would  I  lift  thy  life  to  save, 

And  neither  would  I  seek  to  quench  thy  thirst. — 

Thou  never  didst  me  good  on  hill  or  plain 

That  has  not  helped  my  ruin  and  my  pain.' 

But  Dermaid  moaning  said,  *  I  wronged  thee  not — 

Hither  or  thither,  in  the  east  or  west ; 
Canst  thou  forget  the  day  when  Conal  sought 

To  slay  thee,  and  my  spear  was  at  his  breast  ? 
Lo  !  when  I  fled  with  Grainn^,  who  had  wrought 

Her  spells  that  bound  me,  I  in  vain  did  wrest 
As  with  a  yoke.  ...  Oh  hear  me  while  I  lie, 
My  face  towards  Ben  Goolban  .  .  .  f or  I  die ! 

'  Ben  Goolban  !  0  belov'd  familiar  ben ! 

To  thy  red  brow  I  'd  turn  my  dying  eyes.  .  .  . 
On  thee  I  've  hunted  with  the  bravest  men — 

The  horns,  the  hounds,  the  ever-echoing  cries  ! 
The  longest  journey  would  seem  ended  when 

We  'd  see  from  far  the  Ben  of  Home  arise  .  .  . 
My  face  towards  Ben  Goolban.'  ...  So  he  cried, 
And  then  was  silent.  .  .  .  Ah !  heavily  Finn  sighed. 

With  love  and  hate  at  battle  in  his  heart, 

Old  Finn  arose  and  hastened  to  the  well.  .  .  . 

Then,  bearing  water  in  his  hands,  he  'd  start 

For  Dermaid ;  but,  as  caught  in  some  black  spell. 

He  'd  think  of  Grainne,  and  his  hands  would  part — 
Full  often  thus  the  healing  waters  fell. 

But  when  he  'd  think  of  Dermaid  ...  ah  !  he  sighed, 

And  swiftly  to  the  well  again  he  hied. 


356  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

And  so  he  came  and  went  .  .  .  then  came  again 
To  him  who  bled  .  .  .  but,  kneeling  by  his  side, 

The  thought  of  Grainnfe  rose  with  bitter  pain, 

While  Dermaid  sought  the  draught  that  was  denied, 

But  in  the  end  to  give  it  Finn  was  fain  .  .  . 
Then  with  a  low  keen  cry  the  hero  died — 

His  face  towards  Ben  Goolban  in  eclipse, 

And  Finn's  weak  fingers  pressing  on  his  lips. 


THE  RELATIVE  CLAUSE  IN  SCOTCH  GAELIC 

John  Eraser 

The  treatment  of  the  relative  pronoun  and  its  numerous 
substitutes  strikes  one  as  perhaps  the  weakest  feature  in 
existing  grammars  of  Scotch  Gaelic.  This  is  no  doubt 
natural,  for  in  no  respect  does  the  language  at  all  periods 
of  its  history  offer  a  sharper  contrast  to  the  cognate  lan- 
guages. In  Aryan,  in  Latin  and  Greek  and  their  modern 
representatives,  in  the  other  Teutonic  languages,  as  in 
English,  there  exists  a  relative  pronoun  which  can  introduce 
its  clause  in  whatever  relation  it  may  stand  to  its  main 
clause ;  which  word  in  a  sentence  is  the  relative  pronoun 
cannot  for  a  moment  be  open  to  doubt.  This  is  doubtless 
what  is  responsible  for  the  absurdities  to  which  the  native 
grammarian  commits  himself  in  dealing  with  the  relative. 
Some  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  language  would  make 
it  impossible  to  write  down  such  statements  as  we  find,  e,g, 
in  0' Donovan,  A  Grammar  of  the  Irish  Language,  Dublin, 
1845,  p.  131  ;  or  Stewart,  Elements  of  Gaelic  Grammar,^ 
Edinburgh,  1876,  p.  64.  This  knowledge  is  now,  thanks 
mainly  to  the  labours  of  non-Gaelic-speaking  scholars, 
easily  acquired,  and  a  grammar  of  Scotch  Gaelic  worthy  of 
the  name  should  soon  be  forthcoming. 

This  paper  aims  at  discovering  how  far  in  modern  Scotch 

*  Gillies,  The  Elements  of  Gaelic  Orammar  based  on  the  work  of  the  Rev.  Alexander 
Stewart,  D.D.,  London,  1902,  has  less  excuse  for  some  strange  remarks,  pp.  79,  80. 


THE  RELATIVE  CLAUSE  IN  SCOTCH  GAELIC    357 

Gaelic  the  devices  for  expressing  relativity  used  in  the  older 
language  have  been  retained,  and  what  substitutes  for  them 
have  come  into  use/  For  Old  Irish,  of  course,  the  material 
lies  ready  to  hand  in  Zeus-Ebel,  pp.  341-346,  and  Thurney- 
sen,  Handhuch  des  Altirischen,  pp.  294-307.  For  Mid.  Irish 
collections  have  been  made  from  Atkinson,  Passions  and 
Homilies,  Dublin,  1887 ;  Tain  ho  Fraich,  translated  and 
edited  by  J.  O'Burne  Crowe,  Dublin,  1870 ;  Tain  ho  Cualnge, 
ed.  Windisch,  Leipsig,  1905,  Carwsel,  The  Book  of  Common 
Order,  commonly  called  John  Knox's  Liturgy,  translated  into 
Gaelic,  1567,  ed.  T.  M'Lauchlan,  Edinburgh,  1873.1  More 
definitely  Scotch  documents  used  are  The  Booh  of  Deer,  ed. 
M'Bain,  Trans,  of  the  Gaelic  Society  of  Inverness,  vol.  xi.  137  ff. 
Dean  of  Lismore^s  Book  in  Cameron,  Rel.  Celt,,  vol.  i. 
pp.  1-109.  For  the  modern  language  it  was  necessary  to 
get  texts  as  unliterary  as  possible.  Those  used  are  :  J.  F. 
Campbell's  Popular  Tales  of  the  West  Highlands,  London, 
1860,  1862,  and  the  collections  in  the  various  volumes  of 
Lord  Archibald  Campbell's  Waifs  and  Strays  of  Celtic 
Tradition.    - 

I.  A  relative  pronoun  properly  so  called  exists  in  Gaelic 
only  after  a  preposition,  and  appears  in  the  form  {s)an, 
inthi  dianaiper  ML,  14d.  ;  is-in-cathraig  di-a  n-id  ainm 
Beritus,  Pass,  and  Horn.,  1.  30 ;  dona  righaihh  ara  hfuil 
masla,  Carswel,  p.  5,  dona  deihh  halhha  hodhra  sin  da  gcreiddis, 
ib.  p.  6.  After  the  preposition  in  there  is  in  the  oldest  form 
of  the  language  no  sign  of  this  relative  particle,  a  tech  i  m-hi, 
*  the  house  in  which  he  lives,'  but  at  a  later  stage  it  was 
apparently  affected  by  the  analogy  of  the  other  prepositions  : 
so,  an  da  thahhaill  ina  rabhadar  na  deich  naitheata  sgrihhtha, 
Carswel,  p.  4,  an  timra  ina  hfuil  toil  De,  ib.  8.  The  modern 
language,  however,  still  retains  the  original  usage,  mothai- 
chidh  mise  e  ge  h'  e  ait  am  hi  mi.  Folk  and  Hero  Tales,  ed. 
M'Innes,  p.  116.  Other  exx.  of  the  relative  particle  after 
the  preposition  are  :   dh'  fheoruich  e  dheth  gu  'de  'n  ohair  air 

*  The  language  of  Carswel's  translation  is  Mid.  Irish  pure  and  simple.     The  same 
might  be  said,  with  some  reservation,  of  the  Dean's  Book. 


358  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

an  robh  e  math.  Folk  and  Hero  Tales,  p.  282 ;  n  Atriur 
dd'n  geileadh  na  gaisgich,  Laoidh  cMann  Uisne,  Trans,  of 
Inverness  Gael.  Sac.,  vol.  xv.  p.  214 ;  na  h-uile  dite  ddn 
ruigemaid,  Campbell,  Popular  Tales,  vol.  i.  p.  138,  faicear 
dganach  ...  a'  tighinn  for  an  robh  i,  ib.,  p.  88  ;  thainig  iad 
air  tir  far  an  robh  i,  Campbell,  The  Fianns,  p.  273  ;  a 
choigear  .  .  .  g^am  bu  dual  gaisge  agus  morghniomh,  ib.,  p.  42, 
an  Idmh  leisan  ^  do  bhuxiil  mi  Brian,  ib.,  p.  176.  It  will  be 
observed  that  in  e.g.  far  an  robh  i  the  nasal  of  the  particle 
is  retained  in  writing,  though  not  always  in  speech. 

Here  belong  those  cases  in  which  a  preposition  with  the 
relative  particle,  or  the  neuter  of  the  article,  cf.  Thurneysen, 
Handbuch,  §  466,  serves  as  a  conjunction,  e.g.  de^n  riaghailt  a 
bha  san  rioghachd  drwb  dK  fhalbh  iad,  Campbell,  Popular 
Tales,  vol.  i.  p.  135  ;  and  also  where  the  same  particle  with 
a  preposition  combines  the  function  of  antecedent  and 
relative,  Eng.  what :  gheibh  thu  aon  nl  do  na  tha  thu  faicinn, 
Campbell,  Popular  Tales,  vol.  i.  p.  91.  Here  we  have  a 
striking  example  of  the  way  in  which  our  vicious  modern 
orthography  obscures  the  most  ordinary  grammatical 
relations  and  creates  monstrous  forms  for  the  deception  of 
native  grammarians.  Do  na  tha  in  the  above  ex.  represents 
of  course  an  earlier  dian  ata,  and  ought  to  be  written  don 
athd.  This  form  of  the  substantive  verb  is  partly  responsible 
for  the  '  relative  pronoun '  a  of  our  grammars,  and  one  or 
two  further  exx.  of  the  first  syllable  of  a  verb  parading 
as  a  '  relative '  may  be  noted  :  tha  suiriche  mor  an  siud  a 
tha  ^dol  g^a  tedrnadh,  Campbell,  Popular  Tales,  vol.  i.  p.  88  ; 
in  nu  sowd  in  fer  a  der  tow,  Cameron,  Rel.  Celt.,  vol.  i.  p.  26, 
where  a  represents  ad  of  the  compound  verb  adbiur,  cf. 
anlocht  adeiridsean  do  bheith  indte,  Carswel,  p.  22,  and 
Zimmer,  Keltische  Studien,  vol.  ii.  p.  152 ;  co  a  chitheadh 
e  Highinn,  Campbell,  Popular  Tales,  vol.  i.  p.  136  ;  bha 
gillean  ...  a'  sealltainn  a  mach  cuin  a  chitheadh  iad  a' 

^  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  day  will  come  when  leisan,  annsan,  etc.,  will  be  the 
ordinary  way  of  writing  those  words.  Than  the  present  system  nothing  could  be 
worse  from  either  the  theoretical  or  practical  standpoint. 


THE  EELATIVE  CLAUSE  IN  SCOTCH  GAELIC     359 

tighinn  a  chuideachd,  ib.,  p.  137  ;  de^n  seorsa  a  cM  thu, 
ib.,  vol.  ii.  p.  105,  where  a  represents  the  first  syllable  of 
atchiu.  From  verbs  of  this  form,  the  unaccented  first 
syllable  of  which  was  retained  in  the  spoken  language,  a 
spread  to  cases  where  it  had  no  historical  justification. 
Where  the  verb  of  the  relative  clause  is  in  the  past  tense 
the  so-called  'relative'  a  is  doubtless  due  for  the  most 
part  to  another  reason  to  be  mentioned  presently,  but  in 
e.g.  gu  d^e  ^n  tuarasdal  a  bhios  tu  ^g  iarraidh  ?  M'Innes,  Folk 
and  Hero  Tales,  it  is  in  all  probability  a  result  of  the 
analogy  of  atd, 

II.  Apart  from  sentences  where  the  relative  was  governed 
by  a  preposition,  there  was  in  the  oldest  form  of  the  Gaelic 
language  known  to  us  only  one  case  in  which  anjrthing  that 
can  properly  be  called  a  relative  pronoun  was  used.  In  a 
sentence  like  an  roscribus,  '  that  which  I  have  written,' 
Wh,y  20c  18,  the  article  (demonstrative)  does  duty  for  a 
compound  relative  pronoun  like  the  Eng.  what.  That  an 
here  is  identical  with  an<san  in  dianaiper  has  long  been 
recognised,  both  constructions  being  originally  paratactic, 
c/.  Zimmer,  o.c,  p.  61  ff,  Thurneysen,  ox.  §  506.  An  interest- 
ing illustration  of  this  development  of  a  relative  from  a 
demonstrative  pronoun  we  have  in  late  Latin  where  the 
anaphoric  use  of  is  in  the  classical  language  has  led  to  such 
constructions  as  sexagesimics  nunc,  ut  clarum  est,  agitur 
annus  ex  eo  populus  ille  .  .  .  attigit  fines,  Vict  Vit.,  vol.  i. 
1,  1,  (quoted  Berliner  Phil,  Woch.,  vol.  xxix.  col.  908).  This 
form  of  the  relative  appears  to  be  unknown  in  modern 
Gaelic,  though  it  occurs  inCarswel,  p.  19,  gurab  fior  anabruim, 
as  in  Mid.  Irish,  iso  innaithrech  ol  ailill,  an  dorigensam  ris 
in  fer,  T.B.F.,  148.  In  the  modern  language  Carswel's 
anabruim  would  be  na  their  mi.  From  the  Mid.  Irish  in  a 
fuarus,  in  a  ridernus,  in  a  nepur,  Atkinson,  o.c.  Glossary, 
p.  520,  it  seems  clear  that  na  represents  in  an,  i.e,  the  par- 
ticle an  already  discussed  preceded  by  the  n.  sg.  of  the  article, 
unless  we  should  assume  that  the  n.  pi.  of  the  article  (in)na 
came  to  be  used  in  the  same  sense  as  the  singular  an.     That 


360  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

the  form  (i)n  a  was  generalised  to  the  exclusion  of  (i)n  an 
may  have  well  been  partly  due  to  confusion  with  a  supposed 
relative  na  in  such  sentence  types  as  gheihh  ihu  aon  ni  do  na 
tha  thu  ^faicinn,  Campbell,  Popular  Tales,  vol.  i.  p.  91. 

III.  Where  the  form  of  the  sentence  made  it  impossible 
to  express  the  relative  in  either  of  the  ways  mentioned,  a 
third  ^  means  of  doing  so  in  positive  sentences  was  afforded 
by  the  fact  that  the  verb  itself  had  for  certain  parts  speci- 
fically relative  forms.  2  Where  these  failed  (1)  the  particle 
no-  was  prefixed  to  the  verb  or  (2)  the  relative  nature  of  the 
clause  was  shown  (a)  by  the  lenition  of  the  initial  consonant 
of  the  verb  by  preceding  particle  or  preposition,  or  (6)  the 
insertion  of  a  nasal  element.  The  general  breakdown  or 
simplification  of  the  verbal  system  in  the  later  language,  and 
the  disappearance  in  Scotch  Gaelic  of  the  particle  no- 
makes  a  formal  distinction  of  these  three  cases  impossible. 
In  general  the  particle  do-  is  present  in  one  form  or  another 
in  the  relative  clause,  taking  often  the  place  of  an  earlier  no-. 
The  sentence  bede  cruthnec  roho  mormaer.  Book  of  Deer, 
illustrates  the  type  2(a),  Exx.  from  a  later  stage  in  the 
progress  of  the  language  are :  rofds  ceist  ,  .  ,  dd'n  usee 
tanic  a  sliss  himaigine  crist,  Atkinson,  ox,,  1.  9,  ecmaic  tra 
araile  fer  cristaige  do  muntir  lerusalem  do  thachur  isin 
sinxigoig  moir  na  n-Ebraide  batar  isin  baile,  ib.,  1.  47,  ag 
faigsin  na  Tionara  tugadar  don  laodh  ordha,  Carswel,  p.  4, 
gurab  e  antadhbhar  cedna  tugorra  anumhla  agas  anonoir, 
ib.,  p.  5.  In  car  aid  na  nechi  follsigim-sea  duib,  Atkinson, 
ex.,  1.  40,  we  have  an  ex.  of  simple  paratactic  construction 
without  the  particle  which  in  the  older  language  would  have 
been  prefixed  to  the  verb. 

In  the  modern  language,  as  hinted  above,  do^  or  its 

*  As  the  infixed  pronouns  have  disappeared  long  ago,  the  special  forms  of  them 
used  in  relative  sentences  do  not  concern  us  here. 

*  In  mod.  Gaelic  forms  like  bheireas  are  probably  formations  on  the  analogy  of 
the  old  -«,  subjunctive  rather  than  descendants  of  bera,  etc.  The  relative  form  of  the 
substantive  verb  is  used  only  in  negative  and  interrogative  clauses  or  with  infixed  -an. 
For  the  original  use  an  ex.  is  immdala  na  caingne  7  na  cesta  fuil  acaiby  Atkinson, 
o.c.  I.  21. 


THE  EELATIVE  CLAUSE  IN  SCOTCH  GAELIC     361 

unaccented  form  a-  plays  a  great  part  in  relative  clauses  of 
this  type.  Some  exx.  are  :  ma  sea  shayll  ni  cathry^  zeawris 
tws,  Cameron,  Rel:  Celt,,  vol.  i.  p.  12,  where  zeawris  = 
dh'fhiafras ;  bha  .  ,  ,  da  cMohar  a  bha  ^nan  nabhaidhean, 
Campbell,  Popular  Tales,  vol.  ii.  p.  84  (a  &Aa=:  Cars  well's 
dobhi) ;  gun  neach  ann  a  thearnadh  i,  ib.,  vol.  i.  p.  88  ;  ma  bha 
raoiceil  .  .  .  air  a  bheist  air  na  Idiihean  a  chaidh  seachad, 
ib.,  p.  90  (a  chaidh  =  docoid) ;  cha  deach  a  mach  na  bheireadh 
dachaidh  e,  ib.,  vol.  ii.  p.  106  (na  bheireadh  =  na  a  bheireadh) ; 
tha  peata  beag  an  siud  a  thug  mi  dachaidh,  ib.,  p.  106,  and  the 
common  phrase  nur  a  rdinig,  cf.  nor  huit  from  the  Dean^s 
Booh  ap.,  Cameron,  Bel.  Celt.,  vol.  i.  p.  26.,  where  there  is 
no  indication  of  the  presence  of  the  particle.^  From  the 
past  tense  this  verbal  particle  a  was  extended  to  the  present, 
the  extension  being  doubtless  facilitated  by  the  use  in  the 
present  of  the  a  of  such  verbs  as  atchiu  already  discussed, 
so  that  side  by  side  with  an  fear  a  chaidh  we  have  an  fear 
a  theid.^  Here  may  be  mentioned  a  relatival  use  of  nech 
found  in  Carswel,  Daibhith  neoch  iarus  ar  prindsaghaibh  na 
talmhun  beith  eolach,  p.  3  ;  ar  nairdri  agas  ar  nimpire  neoch 
aid  agas  dobhi  agas  bhias,  p.  25,  and  doubtless  imitated 
from  the  similar  use  in  Mid.  Irish,  e.g.  ac-so  uan  De,  nech 
tocbus  pectha,  Atkinson,  o.c.  Glossary,  p.  817  ;  this  itself 
arose  from  a  misunderstanding  of  the  pronoun  in  sentences 
of  the  type  represented  by  the  modern  cha  phdsadh  i  ach 
an  neach  a  bheireadh  na  cinn  do'n  ghad,  Campbell,  Popular 
Tales,  vol.  i.  p.  90. 

IV.  In  the  case  of  negative  clauses  relativity  was 
indicated  by  the  form  of  the  negative  particle :  instead  of 
the  ni  of  positive  clauses,  ndd,  na,  nach '  were  used.  So, 
fomchain  loid  luin  luad  nad  eel,  Thensaurus  Palaeohibernicus, 
vol.  ii.  p.  290,  ni  jl  i  n-herinn  rig  na  fibre  falte  dun,  Windisc 
Irische  Texte,  vol.  i.  p.  73,  ni  fail  ni  ,  .  .  nad  tei,  TBF, 

^  Very  often  in  the  modern  language  we  have  the  particle  do  repeated  in  the  form 
a  dh'  as  in  de^n  riaghailt  a  hha  san  rioghachd  o'n  a  dh'  fhalhhiad,  quoted  above. 

2  In  e.g.  an  fear  a  hheir  we  have  doubtless  the  descendant  of  an  original  in  fer 
dobeir. 

'  Nach  includes  the  pronoun,  cf.  the  ex.  from  Carswel. 


362  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

150,  an  ni  ar  nach  hjuil  feidhm  no  foghramh  agan  sgrihhtuir 
dhiadha  air,  Carswel,  p.  21,  gdir  eibhinn  gun  dWinn  an 
Fhiann  nach  d'rinneadh  leo  roimhe  riamhy  Campbell,  The 
Fianus,  p.  130;  braiceas  nach  d'  fhuair  e  riam  na  6'  fhedrr  an 
tigh  athar,  M'Innes,  Folk  and  Hero  Tales,  p.  310. 

Nach  already  in  Mid.  Irish  had  acquired  the  force  of  a 
consecutive  conjunction,  v.  Atkinson,  o.  c.  Glossary,  p.  813, 
and  this  led  to  a  type  of  relative  sentence  that  is  really  more 
consecutive  than  relative.  How  closely  allied  the  two 
modes  of  expression  may  be  is  well  illustrated  by  the 
sentence  7  talam-chumscugud  adbul  ingnath  co  rchuir-siam  na 
mairb  beoa  as  suas,  Atkinson,  o.  c.  1.  36,  where  the  clause 
introduced  by  co,  although  formally  purely  consecutive,  is 
functionally  equivalent  to  a  relative  clause.  In  the  ex. 
from  Carswel,  p.  21,  quoted  above,  we  have  a  contamination 
of  the  original  use  of  nach  in  a  negative  clause  and  of  the 
consecutive  nach,  thus :  an  ni  ar  nach  bfuil  feidhm  .  .  . 
agan  sgriobhtuir  dhiadha-^ an  ni  na^ch  bfuil  feidhm  agan 
sgriobhtuir  air.  Constructions  of  this  type  are  quite 
common  in  modern  Scotch  Gaelic  ;  nach  is  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  a  consecutive  conjunction,  and  the  subordinate 
clause  contains  a  possessive  adjective  a  that  takes  the 
place  of  a  preposition  governing  the  relative  in  a  proper 
relative  clause.  Some  exx.  are :  thubhairt  mi  rium  fhein 
nach  posainn  te  sam  bith  nach  biodh  a  cean  cho  dubh  ri  it  an 
fhithich,  M'Innes,  Folk  and  Hero  Tales,  p.  2 ;  thubhairt  i 
gu*m  fac  i  ni  nach  fac  i  riamh  roimh  a  leithid,  M'Dougall, 
Folk  and  Hero  Tales,  p.  26  ;  bha  pailis  aige  ann  an  sin  nach 
fhac  e  riamh  a  leithid,  M'Innes,  o.  c,  p.  214  ;  cha  rC  eil  bean 
mhath  sam  bith  nach  tig  a  tochar  as  a  deigh,  ib. ;  faighibh  a  nis 
calp"  an  daimh  odhair  a  bha  sibh  ag  radh  nach  fhaca  mise  riabh 
a  leithid  'san  Fhinn,  Campbell,  Popular  Tales,  vol.  ii.  p.  106. 

V.  The  evolution  of  the  relative  clause  which  we  have 
seen  in  the  last  section  is  ultimately  due  to  the  essentially 
clumsy  nature  of  the  methods  for  expressing  relativity 
which  the  language  had  at  its  disposal.  Through  the  gradual 
simplification  of  the  verbal  forms,  the  disappearance  of 


THE  EELATIVE  CLAUSE  IN  SCOTCH  GAELIC    363 

infixed  pronouns,  and  the  partly  arbitrary  extension  of 
lenition  the  old  relative  constructions  no  longer  satisfied  the 
Sprachgefilhl  of  the  'speakers.  This  led  on  the  one  hand  to 
the  substitution  for  the  relative  of  the  consecutive  clause,  as 
we  have  seen  in  IV.,  and,  on  the  other,  to  a  mixture  of  a 
relative  and  paratactic  construction.  Instead  of  a  clause 
introduced  by  the  relative  particle  san  governed  by  a  pre- 
position we  have  a  clause  containing  what  in  the  older 
language  would  have  been  a  relative  form  of  the  verb  or  its 
equivalent  with  the  preposition  governing  a  personal  or 
demonstrative  pronoun,^  as  in  the  following  exx.  :  an  te 
bha  iad  an  toir  oirre,  Campbell,  The  Fianns,  p.  229  {  =  an 
te  aira(n)  rohh  iad  an  toir) ;  cha  pJios  mi  te  gu  hrdth  ach  te 
^bhios  a  fait  cho  dubh  ri  iteagan  an  fhithichagus  a  gruaidh  cho 
dearg  ri  fuil  an  fhithich,  M'Innes,  Folk  and  Hero  Tales,  p.  2, 
an  te  ^bh  ^aig  an  fhamhair  posda  a  thug  an  gille  mdr  an  ceam 
deth  rrCun  dj  fhalbh  iad  do  dh^  eirinn,  ib.,  p.  92 ;  a  huile  fear  a 
bheireadh  i  air  their eadh  ^  .  .  .  ib.,  p.  262 ;  na  gabh  ni  sam 
bith  .  .  .  ach  an  loth  pheallagach  odhar  a  tha  ^n  diollaid 
mhaid'  urra,  Campbell,  Popular  Tales,  vol.  i.  p.  13. 

VI.  There  remains  to  be  mentioned  one  other,  apparently 
modern,  relative  construction.  Here  the  relative  clause  is 
connected  with  the  main  clause  by  the  conjunction  agus. 
In  positive  sentences  the  verb  is  preceded  by  a  originating 
from  do-  or  other  pre- verbal  particles  :  ghabh  mac  rlgh  eirinn 
is  nighean  an  righ  air  an  aghaidh  cho  luath  '5  a  bheireadh 
casan  an  steud  iad,  M'Innes,  Folk  and  Hero  Tales,  p.  20 ; 
thug  e  'n  sin  e  gu  mnathan  cho  briogh  '5  a  ghabhadh  faicinn, 
ib.,  p.  98.  In  this  case,  however,  the  subordinate  clause  is 
not  purely  relative.  It  is  still  less  so  when  introduced  by 
the  corresponding  negative  conjunction  '5  nach,  and  the 
construction  may  therefore  be  reserved  for  discussion  in 
another  connection. 

The  development  of  the  relative  construction  in  Scotch 
Gaelic,  consisting  in  (1)  a  simplification  of  expression  and  a 
return  to  what  is  practically  parataxis,  and  (2)  the  substitu- 

1  We  may  also  have  the  possessive  adjective  with  noun  representing  de'n-. 


364  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

tion  of  other  constructions,  in  particular  the  consecutive, 
is  to  be  accounted  for  by  two  facts  in  the  history  of  the 
language.  The  inadequacy  of  the  means  at  the  disposal 
of  the  language  in  its  earliest  stages  has  been  already 
pointed  out.  The  indication  of  the  relative  nature  of 
the  clause  was  vague  as  compared  to  what  we  are  ac- 
customed to  in  e,g,  the  Teutonic  language  ;  and,  further, 
the  method  was  clumsy  and  difl&cult  to  manage  when 
the  relation  of  the  subordinate  clause  to  the  antecedent 
was  not  of  the  simplest.  Devices  of  this  kind  can  be  per- 
petuated only  under  the  most  favourable  circumstances,  ix, 
when  the  traditions  of  the  language  are  supported  by  a 
continuous  written  literature  which  fixes  the  types  of 
expression  and  exerts  a  conservate  influence  on  the  spoken 
language.  It  is  notorious  that  in  the  case  of  Scotch  Gaelic 
this  condition  has  been  wanting.  The  literature,  though 
considerable  in  quantity,  is  popular  in  language  and  style 
to  a  degree  that  would  be  hard  to  parallel.  The  written 
language  instead  of  controlling  the  spoken  form,  is  itself 
for  the  most  part  merely  a  reflex  of  everyday  speech.  There 
has  therefore  been  nothing  in  the  history  of  the  language  to 
counteract  the  historical  and  social  conditions  that  facilitated 
phonetic  change.  This  fact,  if  it  makes  the  historical  study 
of  Scotch  Gaelic  a  more  difficult  task,  makes  it  at  the  same 
time  more  interesting  and  more  instructive  to  the  linguistic 
investigator. 


RIGH  EIRIONN  'S  A    DHA  MHAC 

From  the  MSS.  of  the  late  Rev.  J.  G.  Campbell, 
Minister  of  TntEE 

'S  E  Righ  Eirionn  a  bh'ann,  's  bha  aon  mhac  aige  o'n  chiad 
mhnaoi,  's  mac  bho'  n  te  mu  dheireadh.  Latha  sin  thainig  an 
Eachrais-urlair  a  stigh  's  thuirt  i  ris  a'  mhnaoi,  '  Nach  tu 
bhan-righinn  dhona  dholach,  seach  a  bhan-righinn  shona 
sholasach  a  bh'againne  roimhe  so ;  's  fhearr  dhuit  cur  as  do 


EIGH  EIRIONN  'S  A  DHA  MHAC  365 

mhac  mor  an  righ,  neo  mar  dh'fhasas  a'  chlann  's  ann  aige 
bhios  an  oighreachd  uile,  's  cha  bhi  dad  idir  aig  do  mhac-sa.' 
Thuirt  ise  gu  robh  sid  cheart  cho  maith  leatha-se  's  e  bhi  aig 
a  cuid  cloinne  fhein.  Thoisich  an  Eachrais-urlair  oirre  mar 
so,  's  lean  i  gus  an  d'  thug  i  oirre  aontachadh  gu'n  cuireadh  i 
as  do'n  bhalachan.  Thuirt  a  mhuime  an  sin  nach  robh  fios 
aice  de  an  doigh  air  an  deanamh  i  e.  '  Cha  bhi  mise  f  ada  f  aot- 
ainn  doigh  dhuit,'  thuirt  an  Eachrais-urlair.  *  Nach  bi  deoch 
bhlath  agad  daonnan  air  a  chionn  nuair  thig  e  dhachaidh 
as  an  sgoil  ?  '  '  Bithidh,'  ors  ise.  '  Ni  mise  deoch  dhuit 
's  cuiridh  sinn  puinnsean  ann,  's  nuair  dh'olas  e  i  bidh  e 
marbh,'  ors  an  Eachrais-urlair.  Bha  'm  brathair  6g  ag 
eisdeachd  's  a'  gabhail  beachd  maith  air  na  bha  e  cluinntinn, 
's  a'  sealltuinn  a  mach  air  son  a  bhrathar  bhi  tilleadh.  'Nuair 
chunnaic  e  tighinn  e  ruith  e  'na  chomhdhail,  choinnich  e  e  ann 
an  teis-meadhoin  fras  shneachda,  's  thuirt  e  ris,  '  Suidh 
a  bhrathair,  eudail,  's  naigheachd  agam  dhuit.'  '  Cha  suidh ; 
coisich  dhachaidh  's  an  latha  cho  doirbh,'  thuirt  a  bhrathair. 
'Cha  choisich  mi',  ors  am  fear  og,  *dean  thusa  suidhe;  a  bheil 
fhios  agad  de  tha  mo  mhathair  a'  dol  a  dheanamh  ort  ?  tha  i 
dol  a  chur  puinnsean 's  an  deoch  agad  an  diugh,  's  cha  teid  thu 
stigh  tuilleadh,  chionn  tha  iad  air  son  do  mharbhadh,  's  air 
son  na  chunna  tu  riamh,  cha'n  fhaod  thu  deoch  a  ghabhail.' 
'Carson  tha  i  dol  a  dheanamh  sin?'  ors  am  brathair  mor. 
'  Tha,'  ors  am  brathair  og,  *  eagal  's  gu'm  bi  an  oighreachd 
agadsa,  's  nach  bi  dad  agamsa  nuair  bhios  m'  athair  marbh.' 
Falbh  thusa,  laochain,  dhachaidh,'  ors  am  fear  bu  shine,  '  's 
cha  teid  mise  dhachaidh  gu  brath  tuilleadh.'  '  Cha  teid  mi,' 
ors  am  fear  6g,  '  ach  far  am  bi  sinn  bidh  sinn  ann,  agus,' 
ors  esan,  'cuiridh  mise  seachad  an  deoch  ortsa,  's  cha'n  fhaigh 
thu  h-61.'  'S  dh'  fhalbh  iad  dhachaidh.  'Nuair  rainig  iad 
dh'  eirich  a  mhuime  'nan  coinneamh  's  an  deoch  aice.  '  01  sin, 
a  luaidh,  's  tu  f  uar,'  ors  ise.  Bha  esan  a'  breith  air,  ach  dh'eirich 
am  brathair  og,  's  rug  e  air  an  t-soitheach  's  thilg  e  mach 
e  fhein 's  na  bh'ann.  Chaidh  a  mhathair  as  a  dheigh,  ach  cha 
d'  rug  i  air.  Thainig  an  so  an  oidhche,  's  chaidh  iad  a  laidhe. 
Cha  robh  iad  f  ada 'nan  cadal  'nuair  dh'eirich  am  fear  6g.  'Bheil 


366  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

thu  ad  dhusgadh,  a  bhrathair? '  thuirt  e,  *  tha  'n  t-am  againn 
bhi  tarruing  ruiiin.'  Dh'  eirich  iad,  's  thug  an  fear  6g  leis 
na  b'urrainn  da  de  dh'  or 's  de  dh'  airgiod.  Mar  chaidh  iad  a 
mach  thachair  tri  fithich  orra  a  mharbh  am  puinnsean  a  bha  's 
an^deoch,  's  thuirt  am  fear  6g — *  A  bhrathair  fhein,  bheir  sinn 
leinn  iad  so ;  cha  mhisde  sinn  'n  ar  cuideachd  iad ; '  's  dh'- 
fhalbh  iad  's  thug  iad  leotha  na  h-eoin.  Rainig  iad  tigh, 
's  cha  robh  ann  ach  seann  duine  bho'n  d'iarr  iad  coire  's  am 
bruicheadh  iad  na  h-eoin.  Fhuairiadsin,  'snuair  bha  na  h-eoin 
bruich,  rug  am  fear  6g  air  a'  choire,  's  bhrist  e  ri  tota  an  tighe 
e.  '  Ut,  ut,'  ors  an  sean  duine,  *  ciod  thuige  rinn  thu  sid  ? ' 
'Coma  leibhse,'  thuirt  esan,  *  bheir  mi  fhein  dhuibh  a  luach,' 
's  thug  e  dha  Ian  an  duirn  de  dh'  airgiod.  Cheangail  e  suas 
na  h-eoin,  's  dh'  fhalbh  e  le  bhrathair,  's  ghuidh  an  sean 
duine  soirbheachadh  a  bhi  aea.  Bha  iad  a'  siubhal  's  a'  sior 
imeachd  'nuair  thachair uamh  orra's  anrobh  ah-uileni  luach- 
mhor  a  smaointicheadh  iad  air.  Chaidh  iad  a  stigh  's  cha  d' 
fhuair  iad  duine  rompa,  ach  cha  robh  iad  uine  sam  bith  gus 
am  f  ac'  iad  buidheann  mhor  dhaoine  tighinn.  '  Obh !  obh ! 
a  bhrathair  fhein,  tha  iad  so  air  tighinn,  's  mur  robh  sinn 
marbh  riamh  roimhe  bidh  sinn  a  nis  ann,'  ors  am  brathair 
6g,'  'ma  bheireas  iad  oirnn;  ach  theid  mise  'nan  comhdhail, 
's  ma  chi  thusa  gu  marbh  iad  mise  teichidh  tu.'  Ghabh 
e  'na  ruith  'nan  comhdhail.  '  An  d'  thainig  sibh  ?  '  ors 
esan,  *  tha  mi  sgith  'g  ur  n-iarraidh,  's  a'  sealltuinn  air  ur  son.' 
'  De  an  iarraidh  a  bh'  agad  oirnne  ? '  ors  an  ceannard.  '  Chuala 
mi',  ors  esan,  '  gur  e  gaisgich  's  daoine  foghainteach  a 
bh'  annaibh,  's  bha  toil  agam  ur  faicinn,  's  a  thuilleadh  sin 
bha  fhios  agam  gu'm  biodh  sibh  fuar  acrach,  's  bha  toil  agam 
biadh  bhi  deas  air  ur  cionn.'  Thug  e  stigh  iad,  's  chuir  e  iad 
'nan  suidhe  aig  a'  bhord.  Bha  iad  ann  da  fhear  dheug,  's 
rinn  e  da  phios  dheug  air  na  h-eoin  a  bh'aige,  's  thuirt  e  gur 
e  'n  doigh  a  bh'  aca  an  tigh  athar-san  gu'n  gabhadh  iad  an 
fheoil  an  toiseach,  's  a  phios  fhein  deas  aig  a  h-uile  h-aon 
diubh,  's  cead  toiseachadh.  '  Tha  sin  ceart  gu  leoir,'  thuirt 
an  ceannard.  Cha  luaitha  shluig  iad  an  fheoil  na  thuit  iad 
thall  's  a  bhos  marbh.     '  Mach  a  nis,  a  bhrathair  eudail,  's  ma 


EIGH  EIRIONN  'S  A  DHA  MHAC  367 

bha  riamh  na  roimhe  so  gu  leoir  de'n  t-saoghal  againn  tha  e 
againn  a  nis.'  Thill  iad  do'n  uaimh  a  rithist,  's  chuir  iad  an 
oidhche  seachad  gu^subhach,  solasach. 

Sa'  mhaduinn  dh'  fhalbh  iad,  's  thug  iad  leo  uiread  de 
dh'  or  's  de  dh'  airgiod  's  a  b'urrainn  daibh ;  's  beul  uidhe  ri 
anmoch  chunnaic  iad  tigh  boidheach  geal,  's  thuirt  am 
brathair  6g  ris  a'  bhrathair  bu  shine,  '  Bheil  fhios  agad  de 
'n  tighthashiosansud.'  '  Cha'n'eil,' thuirt  a  bhrathair.  'Sid 
agad  tigh  ridire  nan  ceist,  is  ann  bhios  sinn  an  nochd,  's  cuiridh 
e  ceist  oirnn,  's  mur  fuasgail  sinn  a'  cheist  bidh  ar  cinn  air 
an  stob  tha  mu  choinneamh  an  tighe  aige-san  air  maduinn  am 
maireach. '  '  Mata, '  thuirt  am  fear  eile, '  cha  teid  sinn  idir  ann. ' 
'  Sid  mar  bhitheas,'  ors  am  fear  6g,  *bidh  mise  'nam  ghille 
agadsa,  's  theid  thusa  comhla  ris  an  ridire,  's  theid  mise 
leis  na  gillean,  's  ma  chuireas  e  ceist  ortsa  abair  thusa  ris 
nach  fhiach  leatsa  a  fuasgladh  ach  gu  fuasgail  do  ghille  i.' 
Rinn  iad  sin.  Chuir  ridire  nan  ceist  ceist  air  a'  bhrathair 
mhor,  's  thuirt  esan  gu  robh  gille  aige  dh'  fhuasgladh  a' 
cheist.  '  Faigh  a  nuas  do  ghille.'  Thainig  e  'n  tiotadh,  's 
dh'  f  huasgail  e  cheist.  '  An  da,'  ors  an  ridire,  *  tha  mo  cheann- 
sa  nis  co  geal  ri  meall  lin ;  is  ioma  duine  chuir  a'  cheist  a  cheann 
air  an  stob,  's  cha  d'  fhuair  mi  riamh  h-aon  a  dh'  f  huasgail  i 
gus  an  nochd.'  Ors  am  fear  og,  '  Cuiridh  mise  nis  ceist 
ortsa,  's  feuch  am  fuasgail  thu  i.'  '  Cluinneam  i,'  ors  an 
ridire.  '  Rinn  bean  deoch  do  dh'aon,  's  mharbh  an  deoch 
triuir,  's  mharbh  an  triuir  da  fhear  dheug,  's  fhuair  dithis  as.' 
Thoisich  an  ridire  air  smaointeachadh,  's  chaidh  e  roimh 
na  ceistean  's  roimh  na  leabhraichean,  's  ged  bhiodh  e  gu 
latha  bhrath  dol  rompa  cha'n  fhuasgladh  e  i.  Thuirt  esan  an 
sin  ris  an  ridire,  '  Tha  mise  falbh,  's  mur  bi  cheist  fuasgailte 
agad  roimh  dha  uair  dheug  am  maireach  bidh  do  cheann 
fhein  air  an  stob.'  Dh'  fhairtlich  air  sin  a  dheanamh.  Cha 
robh  aig  an  ridire  ach  aon  nighean,  's  chur  e  i  far  an  robh  iad 
a  radh  riu  gu  faigheadh  iad  an  uiread-sa  dh'or  's  a  leithid 
eile  dh'  airgiod,  's  leth  na  h-oighreachd  co  fad 's  a  bhiodh  e  beo, 
agus  an  nighean,  ach  fuasgladh  na  ceist  a  thoirt  da.  Thuirt 
am  fear  6g  ris  an  sin  gur  ann  bha  iadsan  a'  tilgeil  oir  is  airgid 


368  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

air  na  rathaidean  mora, '  s  nach  f  huasgladh  sin  a'  cheist.  '  Agus, 
a  bhrathair,  's  fhearr  dhuit-saan  nighean  a  phosadh ;  cha'n'eil 
sinn  ach  air  allaban  's  an  amhghar  an  so  co-dhiu.'  '  Tha  mi 
cinnteach,'  thuirt  am  brathair  bu  shine,  *  gu  bheil  sin  cheart 
cho  maith.'  De  bh'ann  ach  gu'n  do  shuidhich  iad  aige  so,  's 
chaidh  latha  air  a  shon  a  chur  air  leth,  's'nuair  bha  chuirm  air 
aghaidh,  thainig  creutair  grannda  stigh,  's  ghabh  e  seachad 
orra  aig  a'  bhord.  Dh'  eirich  am  fear  6g,  's  thuirt  e  ris  an 
fhear  eile — '  Eirich  a  nis  's  bheireamaid  as  a  cheile  e  mar  bha 
chridh'  aige  tighinn  a  dheanamh  tair  oimn.'  As  a  dheighinn 
thug  iad ;  rug  fear  air  chluasan  's  fear  air  earball  air.  Dh'- 
eirich  e  suas  anns  an  adhar  leotha.  Sheall  am  brathair  bu 
shine  fodha,  's  cha  robh  e  faicinn  an  talmhanta  ach  na 
shuileagan  uaine,  's  leig  e  as  a  ghreim,  's  c'aite  'n  do  thuit  e 
ach  ann  am  pairc  nan  tore  biadhta  aig  Fionn  mac  Cumhaill. 
Bha  sannt  bidh  air,  's  mharbh  e  fear  de  na  tuirc,  's  rinn  e 
feannadh  builg  air.  Bha  sin  cruaidh-theine  is  spor  aige, 
's  chuir  e  taobh  beoil  dhearg  na  seiche  mach,  's  taobh  an 
fhionnaidh  a  stigh,  's  mar  chuir  e  suas  an  teine  thoisich  e  air 
rosladh  a  bhidhidh.  Bha  Fionn  'na  luidhe  tinn,  's  dh'iarr  e 
air  fear  coimhead  nam  beathaichean  fiadhaich  sealltuinn 
a  mach.  'Nuair  rinn  e  sin,  chunnaic  e  gur  e  'n  tore  a  b'fhearr 
a  chaidh  a  mharbhadh,  's  dh'  innis  e  do  dh'  Fhionn  gu  robh  a 
chraicionn  'na  bhothan-airidh  's  toit  as,  's  coltas  an  duine  bha 
fodha.  ' Mach,'  orsa  Fionn,  'da  fhear  dheug,  's  thoiribh  an  so 
e,  CO  sam  bith  e.  'Nuair  rainig  iad  e,  ghlaodh  iad  ris  e  thighinn 
a  mach  gus  an  cuireadh  iad  an  cuibheal  bhall  e.  Thuirt  e  nach 
tigeadh  gus  am  biodh  a  shath  aige  de'n  bhiadh.  Ghabh  iad 
a  stigh  g'a  thoirt  a  mach,  's  a'  chuibheal  bhall  aca.  Leam  esan 
's  rug  e  air  a'  chuibheal  bhall,  's  thilg  e  mu'n  cuairt  orra  i,  's 
theannaich  e  air  a  cheile  iad  mar  shopag  connlaich,  's  thilg 
e  an  culaibh  a'  bhothain-airidh  iad.  Bha  Fionn  a'  gabhail 
f adail  nach  robh  iad  a'  tighinn,  's  dh'  iarr  e  air  an  fhear  riagh- 
ailt  a  bha  sin  sealltuinn  a  mach  feuch  d6  bha  'g  an  cumail. 
'Nuair  thill  esan  air  ais  thuirt  e  ri  Fionn  gu  robh  an  smuid 
a'  dol  na  bu  mhotha  's  na  bu  mhotha  aig  an  fhear  a  bha 
sa'  bhothan-airidh. 


EIGH  EIRIONN  'S  A  DHA  MHAC  369 

*Mach,'  orsa  Fionn,'da  fhear  dheug  de  m'  ghillean,  's  thoiribh 
an  so  e,  co  sam  bith  e. '  Dh'  f  halbh  iad, '  s  ghlaodh  iad  ris  tighinn 
a  mach.  Thuirt  e  nach  tigeadh,  gus  am  f aigheadh  e  leoir 
bidhidh.  Rug  e  orra,  's  cheangail  e  comhla  iad,  's  thilg  e 
air  culaibh  a'  bhothain-airidh  iad.  Dar  dli'innseadh  do 
dh'  Fhionn  gu  robh  an  smuid  f hathast  a'  fas  na  bu  mhotha, 
thuirt  e — '  Feumaidh  gur  e  ceatharnach  fuathasach  a  th'ann.' 
Dh'eirich  e  mach  gun  dail,  's  choisich  e  gu  f  alchaidh,  's  fhuair 
e  na  gaisgich  aige  fhein  air  an  ceangal.  Chuir  e  stigh  a  lamh 
sa'  bhothan-airidh,'s  fhuair  e  greim  air  an  fhear  a  bha  stigh,  's 
thug  e  mach  e  gu  theis-meadhoin.  Thug  am  fear  a  bha  stigh 
spionadh  air-san,  's  thug  e  stigh  a  cheart  uiread  e,  's  thilg  e  air 
taobh  thall  an  teine  e,  gus  an  do  bhuail  a  dhruim  f odha  anns 
a'  bhothan-airidh.  Smaointich  Fionn  gu  robh  e  fada  bho 
chairdean  's  dluth  air  naimhdean,  's  thuirt  e  ris — '  Fois  air 
do  laimh,'ille  laidir' ;  's  gu  robh  e 'g  iarraidh  maitheanais,  's  gu 
faodadh  e  beag  mor  's  a  bh'aige  de  bhiadh  fhaighinn. 
Fhreagair  esan  gu  robh  sid  aige  ri  fhaotainn — maitheanas. 
Dh'fharraid  Fionn  c'ainm  a  bh'air,  's  thuirt  e  gur  e  Gille  nan 
cochuU  eraicinn  an  t-ainm  theirteadh  ris.  Dh'iarr  Fionn  air 
f  asdadh  a  dheanamh  ris ;  'S  cha'n  iarr  mi  car  ach  na  thoilicheas 
tu  fhein  a  dheanamh,  's  gu  leig  thu  dhachaidh  mo  chuid 
daoine  sabhailt.'  Dh'  fhuasgail  e  sin  na  daoine  's  leig  e 
dhachaidh  iad.  Mar  rainig  e  tigh  Fhinn  fhuair  e  gabhail 
aige  gu  maith  's  gu  ro  mhaith.  Bha  iad  a'  cluich  mar  sin, 
's  a'  cordadh  gu  maith.  Dar  rachadh  esan  do'n  t-sabhal  's  e 
an  obair  a  bh'  aige  bhi  tilgeil  gillean  Fhinn  bho  bhois  gu  bois 
thar  nan  sparran,  fear  air  gach  bois.  Latha  sin  co  thainig 
a  stigh  ach  an  Eachrais-urlair,  's  thuirt  i  ris,  'S  tu  aon  duine  's 
motha  paigheadh  's  as  lugha  feum  a  chunnaic  no  chuala 
duine  riamh  mu  thimchiolL'  Thug  esan  sgiobag  dhi  's  an 
aodann  le  barr  a  mheoir,  's  dh'  fhalbh  ise,  's  ''hlia  ^blia  aice, 
far  an  robh  Fionn.  '  Nach  d' thuirt  mi  riut  an  duine  sin  a 
sheachnadh,  gur  e  duine  cunnartach  a  bh'  ann  ? '  orsa  Fionn. 
'  Cuir  as  da,  mata,'  ors  ise.  '  Ciamar  ni  mi  sin  ? '  orsa  Fionn. 
*Cuiridh  mise  do  dh'  aite  e  nach  tig  e  as  am  feasd,'  ors  ise. 
'C'aite  bheil  sin,'  orsa  Fionn.    '  Gu  fear  an  Achaghloine,  f euch 

VOL.  VI.  2  A 


870  THE  CELTIC  EEVIEW 

de  chum  e  gun  ghuth,  gun  ghean,  gun  gh^ire  fad  sheachd 
bliadhna.'  Bha  Fionn  deidheil  air  so  a  chluinntinn,  's  chaidhe 
far  an  robh  e  feuch  an  rachadh  e  ann.  *  Ni  mi  sin,'  thuirt 
esan,  *  ma  theid  duine  dh'ionnsachadh  an  rathaid  dhomh.' 
'  Cuiridh  mi  h-aon  sam  bith  ann  ach  an  Eachrais-urlair,'  thuirt 
Fionn.  *  Cha  ghabh  mise  duine  ach  an  Eachrais-urlair,' 
thuirt  esan.  Bha  iad  a'  f  albh  comhla.  '  Sin  an  tigh  shuas 
an  sin,  's  cha  bhi  agad  fhein  ach  dol  g'a  ionnsuidh.'  '  An 
teid  thu  fhein  na's  fhaide  na  sin  ?  '  '  Cha  teid,'  ors  ise. 
Thug  e  fideag  oirre,  's  chairich  e  i  ann  am  poll  moine  chunnaic 
e  urchair  gunna  uaithe,  gus  nach  robh  an  uachdar  dhi  ach 
da  mhalaidh  's  d^  shuQ.  *  'S  ciamar  sam  bith  dh'eireas 
dhomhsa  bidh  fhios  agadsa  mu  fag  thu  sin  de  dh'eireas 
dhuit  fhein,'  ors  esan.  Ghabh  e  suas,  's  fhuair  e  fear  an 
Achaghloine  aig  an  teine,  's  chaidh  iad  an  caraibh  a  cheile,  's 
an  t-aite  bu  chruaidhe  rachadh  iad  fodha  gu  bac  nan  eas- 
gaidean,  an  ath  urchair  gus  na  gluinean,  's  anns  an  aite  bu 
bhuige  gus  an  cneas.  Thoisich  esan  air  smaointeachadh  gu 
robh  e  fada  bho  chairdean  's  dluth  d'a  naimhdean,  's  thug 
e  togail  aotrom  aighearach  do  dh'  fhear  an  Achaghloine; 
chuir  e  air  steidhaill  a  dhroma  e,  's  tharrainn  e  nail  ealag  's 
tuadh,  's  thuirt  e  ris — '  Mur  innis  thu  dhomh  c' arson  a  tha 
thu  gun  ghuth,  gun  ghean,  gun  ghaire  fad  sheachd  bliadhna 
sgobaidh  mi  an  ceann  dhiot  air  an  ealaig.'  '  Fois  air  do 
laimh,  's  innsidh  mi  sin  dhuit.'  *  Cluinneam  e.'  '  Ni  mi  sin, 
mata.  Bha  mi  fhein  an  sid '  s  mo  dhaoine, '  s  sinn  a'  cluich  air  clar 
taileasg,  's  thainig  creutair  grannda  stigh  's  ghabh  e  seachad 
oirnn,  's  dh'  fhalbh  mise  's  mo  dhaoine 's  rug  sinn  air,  's  thog 
e  air  f  albh  sinn  gus  an  d'  f hag  e  sinn  anns  an  eilean  ruadh  aig 
Ai ;  chuir  iad  sin  a  mach  mo  dhaoine-sa  a  thoirt  a  stigh  an  tuirc 
nimhe,  agus  chuir  esan  an  gath  annta  's  mharbh  e  iad.  An 
sin  chuir  fear  an  tighe  greideal  air  an  teine  's  'nuair  bha 
ghreideal  teth,  chuir  e  mise  'nam  shuidhe  oirre  gus  an  do  loisg- 
ear  mi  gus  an  cnaimh,  's  e  sin  a  chum  mise  gun  ghuth,  gun 
ghean,  gun  ghaire  fad  sheachd  bliadhna.'  '  Nach  bochd 
nach  tigeadh  an  creutair  sin  a  stigh  an  ceart-uair,'  orsa  Gille 
nan  cochull  craicinn.    Mu'n  do  leig  e  deireadh  an  fhacail  as 


EIGH  EIEIONN  'S  A  DHA  MHAC  371 

a  bheul  thainig  an  creutair  a  stigh.  '  Eirich  a  nis,'  ors  esan. 
'  Cha'n  eirich  mise  gu  brath  as  a  dheigh,'  thuirt  ridire  'n 
Achaghloine.  '  Eirich,  neo  cuiridh  mi  car  'n  ad  amhaich 
mar  gum  biodh  cearc ' ;  's  dh'  eirich  iad  le  cheile,  's  rug  iad 
air  a'  chreutair,  's  dh'  fhalbh  i  leotha  gus  an  d'fhag  i  iad  'san 
eilean  ruadh  an  Ai  a  rithist.  Chuir  esan  an  sin  na  gillean  aig 
fear  an  eilean  a  mach  dh'  iarraidh  tore  nimhe,  'smharbhantorc 
nimhe  na  gillean.  Chuir  e  sin  air  a'  ghreideal,  's  'nuair  bha  i 
geal  chuir  e  fear  an  tighe  'na  shuidhe  uirre  gus  an  do  loisgeadh 
gu  bas  e.  Bha  triuir  mhnathan  ruadha  shuas  an  uachdar 
an  tighe,  's  thug  esan  ionnsuidh  le  stob  iarruinn  airson  am 
marbhadh.  'Fois  air  do  laimh,'  orsa  na  mnathan,  'tha 
stopan  iocshlainte  againne  bheir  beo  daoine  an  duine  tha 
leat.'  Einn  esan  air  a  shocair,  's  fhuair  iad  an  stopan 
iocshlainte  's  thuirt  iad  ris  an  fhear  eile — '  C'aite  bheil  do 
chuid  daoine  'nan  laidhe ' ;  's  chuir  iad  deur  dheth  am  beul  an 
fheadhainn  a  bhuineadh  dhasan  bha  marbh,  's  thug  iad  beo 
iad,  's  dh'  fhalbh  iad  dhachaidh  gu  toilichte  solasach  's  na 
daoine  leotha,  's  'nuair  bha  iad  a'  dealachadh,  thuirt  fear  an 
Achaghloine  ris — '  Uair  sam  bith  bhios  tu  an  cas  no  an  eigin 
iarr  mise,  's  cha'n  'eil  an  ceithir  ranna  ruadh  an  domhain  's 
na  urrainn  seasamh  'nar  n-aghaidh.'  Dh'  fhag  esan  beann- 
achd  aige.  Suil  gu'n  d'  thug  Fionn  a  mach  's  co  chunnaic  e 
tilleadh  ach  esan,  's  thuirt  e, '  's  mi  fhein  a  dh'fhaodadh  mo 
gheall  a  chur,  'nuair  dh'fhairtlich  e  orm  fhein  's  air  mo  chuid 
daoine,  gu  faodadh  uile  's  an  t-saoghal  sgur  dheth.'  Dh' 
innis  e  do  dh'  Fhionn  de  chum  fear  an  Achaghloine  gun 
ghuth,  gun  ghean,  gun  ghaire  fad  sheachd  bliadhna,  's 
chaidh  e  mach  mar  rinn  e  roimhe  don  t-sabhal,  's  thoisich 
e  air  iomairt  nan  gillean  thar  nan  sparran.  Thainig 
an  Eachrais-urlair  a  stigh,  's  thuirt  i  mar  thuirt  i  roimhe. 
Thug  esan  cliofag  dhi,  's  chaidh  i  stigh  ri  taic  far  an 
robh  Fionn.  Thuirt  e  rithe — Nach  d' thuirt  mi  riut  an 
duine  sin  a  sheachnadh,  gu  robh  e  cunnartach  ? '  '  Cha 
sheachain  mi  e,'  ors  ise,  *  ach  cuiridh  mi'n  drast  e  do  dh'aite 
as  nach  till  e.'  *  C'aite  'eil  sin,'  orsa  Fionn.  'Gu  fear  an  Acha- 
bhuidhe,'ors  ise,  'dh' iarraidh  cupa  cheatharnaich  air,  cha'n'  eil 


372  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

fear  lag  no  laidir  a  chaidh  an  sin  a  thainig  as  riamh  beo.' 
Chuir  Fionn  fios  air — '  De  's  aill  leibh,  Fhinn  ?  '  thuirt  esan. 
'  Thusa  dhol  gu  ridire  an  Achabhuidhe  dh'iarraidh  tacain 
de'n  chupa  cheatharnaich.'  Thuirt  e  mar  thuirt  e  roimhe 
gu  rachadh,  ach  nach  gabhadh  e  duine  beo  ach  an  Eachrais- 
urlair  dh'  ionnsachadh  an  rathaid  dha.  Dh'fhalbh  iad 
comhla.  '  Nis,'  ors  ise,  'nuair  bha  iad  's  an  dealachadh,  '  tha 
'n  tigh  shuas  os  do  chionn ;  eha  teid  mise  na's  fhaide.'  Rinn 
esan  mar  rinn  e  roimhe :  thilg  e  ann  am  poll  moine  i,  ach 
dh'aon  ni  g'  an  d'fhuair  i  fhuair  i  tighinn  assid.  Lean  esan  air 
aghaidh  suas,  's  aig  seann  togalach  bha  sin  thachair  baigeir 
air  a  dh'fharraid  dheth  c'aite  an  robh  e  dol.  Dh'innis  e  dha. 
'An  da,' thuirt  am  baigeir,  *sinant-aite'sanrobh  mise  'n  raoir, 
's  'nuair  chi  iad  leithid  de  choltas  duine  ortsa  feuchaidh  iad 
ri  d'  mharbhadh,  a  chionn 's  e  daoine  laidir  treun  tha  sin,  's  cha 
deachaidh  h-aon  riamh  air  an  turns  air  a  bheil  thusa  dol  a  thill 
le  sgeul;  ach,'  ors  esan,  *tha  iad  caomhail  ri  baigeirean,  's  cuir 
thusa  ort  na  luirichean  a  th'  ormsa,  's  leig  ort  gur  e  baigeir 
bochd  a  th'annad  's  gheibh  thu  stigh.'  Rinn  e  sin,  's  ghabh  e 
suas  le  ceum  an  drast  's  a  rithist  bho  thaobh  gu  taobh.  'Nuair 
mhothaich  fear  an  Achabhuidhe  dha  tighinn  thuirt  e  ri  dha- 
oine  dol  an  comhdhail  a'  bhaigeir  bha  tighinn  dh'ionnsuidh  an 
tighe,  's  gu'mbu  shuarach  am  fear  a  bh'ann  an  raoir  seach  am 
fear  bha  tighinn  an  nochd,  's  gu  robh  e  coltach  ri  bhi  'na  cheath- 
arnach  uaireigin  de'n  t-saoghal  ged  tha  e  dol  air  ais  cho  mor 
so.  Chaidh  fear  de  na  daoine  f  o  gach  achlais  a  chuideachadh  an 
duine  bhochd  dh'  ionnsuidh  an  tighe.  '  Nuair  gheibheadh  esan 
cothrom  leagadh  e  chudthrom  orra,  's  bhristeadh  e  na  cnamh- 
an  aca  'nan  smuraich.  Dh'iarr  fear  an  Achabhuidhe  air 
a  mhnaoi  an  cupa  ceatharnaich  a  thoirt  a  nuas  's  deoch 
thoirt  da  as.  '  Tha  e  co  maith  dhuit  leigeil  leis  a'  chupa 
cheatharnaich  far  a  bheil  e,'  ors  ise.  '  Nuas  e,  o  'n  tha  mise 
'ga  iarraidh,'  ors  esan.  Chaidh  an  cupa  thoirt  a  nuas,  's  bha'm 
baigeir 's  a  lamhan  's  a  cheann  air  chrith  a'  toirt  balgum  as  a' 
chupa.  'Nuair  fhuair  e  cothrom  leum  e  's  chuir  e'n  tigh  air 
chrith,  's  a  mach  ghabh  e.  Ghlaodh  am  fear  eile,  '  Dhaoine, 
ma  rinn  sibh  riamh  e,  feuch  am  faigh  sibh  greim  air  an 


RIGH  EimONN  'S  A  DHA  MHAC  373 

oganach ; '  ach  cha  robh  ploc  bha  e  tilgeil  as  an  talamh  ghlas 
le  dha  chois  nach  robh  'g  an  dalladh  as  a  dheigh,  's  cha  robh 
aca  ach  tilleadh  dhachaidh — dh'fhairtlich  orra  cur  ris. 
Fhuair  e  an  duine  bochd  far  an  d'fhag  e  e.  '  Tha  thu  air 
tilleadh,  a  dhuine  fhoghaintich,'  thuirt  am  baigeir  ris.  'Tha,' 
ors  esan,  *  's  bha  feum  agam  ortsa ;  "s  chuir  e  lamh  'naphoca  's 
thug  e  dha  Ian  a  laimhe,  's  dhealaich  iad.  Suil  thug  Fionn 
a  mach  's  co  chunnaic  e  tighinn  ach  esan.  'Na  robh  mi  so,' 
orsa  Fionn,  *mur  e  fhein  tha  so  air  tilleadh;  's  mi  dh'fhaodadh 
mo  gheall  a  chur  gu  faodainn  m'earbsa  chur  ann.'  Thuirt 
e  ris  an  Eachrais-urlair,  'Nach  robh  thu  ag  radhainn  rium 
nach  robh  duine  beo  thainig  as  sid  riamh.'  '  Bha,'  ors  ise, 
*cha'n  eil  e  furasda  cur  asdhasan,  ach  cuiridh  mis'  an  drast 
e  dh'  aite  nach  tig  e  as  gu  brath.'  Thainig  esan  's  shin  e  'n 
cupa  ceatharnaichd'Fhionn's  chaidhe  mar  rinn  e  roimhedo'n 
t-sabhal,  's  thainig  an  Eachrais-urlair  stigh  sa'  cheart  doigh. 
An  latha-sa  bhuail  e  i  na  bu  mhotha,  is  ann  air  eigin  's  gu'n 
d' fhuair  i  stigh.  Ghabh  Fionn  truas  dhi  mar  rinn  e  roimhe. 
'Fhinn  mhaith,'  ors  ise,  'Cuireadh  sibhs'  air  falbh  e  far  a  bheil 
gaisgeach  na  leine  baine  feuch  de  an  cor  a  th'air ;  cha  do  chuir 
e  riamh  air  ach  leine  bhan  an  latha  b'  fhuaire  thigeadh  sa' 
bhliadhna  dhol  do'n  bheinn  shithne  is  sheilg.'  Chaidh 
fios  air-san.  'S  an  deigh  farraid  de  'n  turns  bh'aig  Fionn  ris 
chaidh  innseadh  dha,  's  mu  dheighinn  an  fhir  bha  e  ri  dol  g'a 
ionnsuidh.  Nuair  dh'iarr  e  duine  rachadh  comhla  ris,  thuirt  iad 
ris  gu  f  aigheadh  e  h-aon  sam  bith  dh'ionnsachadh  an  rathaid 
dha  ach  an  Eachrais-urlair,  chionn  gu  robh  i  thun  bhi  marbh. 
'  Cha  ghabh  mi  ach  ise,'  thuirt  esan.  '  Feumaidh  i  dol  ann, 
mata,'  thuirt  Fionn.  Dh'fhalbh  iad  's  rainig  iad  aiseag. 
'Sin,'  ors  ise,  *curachan,  's  bheir  i  nunn  thu,  's  nuair  ruigeas  tu 
thall  till  a  h-aghaidh  an  rathad  eile,  's  thig  i  fhein  air  ais.' 
"S  cha  teid  thu  fhein  na 's  fhaide  na  sin  ?  '  '  Cha  teid,  tha  mi 
fada  gu  leoir.'  Rug  esan  oirre  's  chur  e  thairis  ris  an  talamh  i 
gus  'na  phronn  e  na  cnamhan  aice,  's  chuir  e  sin  clach  mhor 
OS  a  cionn,  's  thuirt  e — 'Bi  thusa  sin,  cha'n  urrainn  duit  a  nis 
mise  chur  do'n  ath  aite.'  Ghabh  e  nunn  leis  a'  churachan,  's 
bha  dithis  mhnathan  an  uachdar  an  tighe,  's  dh  fharraid  e 


374  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

dhiubh  c'aite  an  robh  Gaisgeach  na  leine  baine.  Thuirt  iad 
ris  gu  robh  sa'  bheinn  shithne  's  sheilg,  's  e  dli'  fheitheamh. 
'Nuair  thainig  an  ridire  dhachaidh's  eallach  throm  de  dh'eoin 
aige  thuirt  e  ris  namnathan — 'Thacoigreach  agaibh  annochd.' 
'Nuair  ghabh  e  biadh,  chaith  e  'n  coigreach  thar  sia  sparran, 
ach  thilg  an  coigreach  esan  thar  ochd  sparran;  an  sin  thilg  e 
rithist  e  thar  seachd,  ach  chaith  am  fear  eile  esan  thar  deich. 
Dar  chunnaic  ridire  na  leine  baine  gu  robh  e  na  bu  treasa  na 
e  fhein,  bha  iarunn  mor  aige  airson  bhi  dathadh  nan  ian,  's 
thug  e  mach  an  t-iarunn  as  an  teine  air  son  a  chur '  s  an f  hear  eile. 
Ghlaodlma  mnathan— 'Fois  air  do  laimh,  a  ridire  naleine  b^ine, 
'sann  ath'agaddobhrathair.'  'Anemobhrathairath'agaman 
so  ? '  ors  esan.  '  S  e,  's  tha  sinne  f  ada  gu  leoir  'g  ur  cumail  bho 
cheile,  sinn  a'  bheisd  mhor  fo  gheasaibh  a  bh'aig  a'  bhanais  an 
tigh  ridire  nan  ceist,  's  a  thug  air  f albh  thu  fhein  is  ridire  an 
Achaghloine  do'n  eilean  ruadh  Ai,  's  a  thug  beo  na  daoine. 
Dh'  fhuirich  do  bhrathair  leinn  riamh  gus  so :  tha  sinn  a  nis 
a'  dealachadh  ribh  's  a'  f  agailbeannachd  leibh.'  Dh'  innis  esan 
an  sin  do'n  bhrathair  6g  an  eachdraidh,  's  mar  chuir  Fionn  air 
f albh  e  h-uile  uair  'nuair  dh'iarradh  anEachrais-urlair  air.  'So 
dhuit-sa  slat  oir,'  thuirt  ridire  na  leine  baine,  *  's  iomain  mise 
romhad  gu  tigh  Fhinn.'  'Nuair  chunnaic  Fionn  an  dithis 
a'  tighinn thainig balla-chrith  airfhein  's  air  a  chuid  daoine  leis 
an  eagal,  's  thuirt  e  ris  an  Eachrais-urlair,  *Nach  d' thuirt  mi 
riut  nach  gabhadh  e  marbhadh  ? '  Chuir  e  f  ailt'  orra,  's  thuirt 
e — "S  mise  dh'  fhaodadh  m'earbsa  chur  as  mo  ghille,'  's  dh' 
iarr  e  air  tighinn  a  stigh  's  gu  f aigheadh  e  thuarasdal.  *  C'aite 
bheil  an  cupa  ceatharnaich  ? '  dh'  f harraid  am  fear  6g.  '  Nach 
d'  f  hag  thu  agam  fhein  e  ? '  thuirt  Fionn.  Thug  Fionn  an  sin  dha 
e,  's  bha  e  toilichte.  Thill  na  braithrean  gu  tigh  ridire  nan 
ceist,  'schaidh  banais  mhor  a  mhair  latha  's  bliadhna  a  dhean- 
amh.  Thill  iad  an  sin  dhachaidh,  's  fhuair  iad  an  athair  air  fas 
dall  bodhar  leis  an  duilichinn,  ach  fhuair  e  air  ais  trian  d'a 
leirsinn  's  d'a  chlaisteachd  'nuair  chunnacas  an  toiseach 
iadsan  a'  tighinn,  's  d^  thrian  'nuair  thainig  iad  na  bu  dluithe, 
's  tri  trian  'nuair  rainig  iad  an  tigh.  Chaidh  an  rioghachd  a 
shuidheachadh  orra.     Sin  mar  dh'eirich  dhaibh  an  uair  sin. 


PAN-CELTIC  NOTES  375 

PAN-CELTIC    NOTES 

THE  BRITISH  ACADEMY 

At  an  Ordinary  Meeting  of  the  British  Academy,  held  in  the  rooms  of  the 
Royal  Society,  Mr.  S.  H.  Butcher,  M.P.,  President,  in  the  chair,  Sir  John 
Rhys,  Fellow  of  the  Academy,  read  a  paper  on  '  The  Coligny  Calendar  :  in 
its  relation  to  the  Celtic  Mythology  of  the  British  Isles,  especially  Ireland.' 

In  the  course  of  his  Paper,  Sir  John  Rhys  said  Coligny  was  a  place  about 
ten  miles  north  of  Lyons.  There,  in  the  year  1897,  numerous  fragments  of 
an  inscribed  tablet  of  bronze  were  found,  together  with  other  fragments 
which  had  no  writing  on  them.  These  last  had  been  put  together  and  made 
up  an  almost  perfect  statue  of  the  god  of  the  temple  in  which,  presumably, 
the  tablet  was  set  up.  The  latter  measured  when  complete  1  '48  m^tre  by 
0*90,  and  it  proved  to  have  been  a  calendar  for  the  period  of  five  years. 
The  language  was  Celtic  but  not  Gaulish  ;  it  seemed  to  fit  best  as  an  early 
stage  of  what  in  Ireland  became  the  Irish  language  as  known  in  old  Irish 
MSS.,  and  in  the  Ogam  inscriptions  of  Ireland  and  the  west  of  Britain.  The 
five  years  of  the  calendar  included  two  intercalary  months  of  thirty  days 
each.  One  of  the  two  began  the  calendar  and  stood  before  the  month  of 
Samonios,  or  June,  and  marked  that  month  as  the  first  month  of  the  year. 
The  other  intercalary  month  came  in  the  third  year,  and  was  placed  in 
front  of  the  first  month  of  the  other  half  year — namely,  Giamonios,  or 
December.  Sir  John  Rhys  proceeded  to  interpret  a  note  at  the  end  of  the 
first  intercalary  month,  which  seemed  to  say  that  the  thirty  days  of  that 
month  had  already  had  the  clavus  anni  placed  in  the  hole  opposite  each  of 
those  days ;  that  was,  that  they  had  already  been  marked  off  when  the 
calendar  was  set  up  in  the  beginning  of  Samonios,  or  June. 

The  first  year  of  the  five  was  the  most  correct,  astronomically  speaking, 
and  Rivros,  or  August,  was  the  most  important  month  in  it.  Sir  John 
found  evidence  that  the  god  Rivos,  after  whom  Rivros  is  called,  was  sup- 
posed to  reside  among  his  people  during  that  month,  or  a  portion  of  it.  In 
the  other  four  years  he  seemed  to  have  been  represented  by  his  priest. 
Then  followed  some  account  of  the  area  on  the  Continent,  in  Britain,  and  in 
Ireland  over  which  the  cult  of  the  god  Lug  extended,  and  statements  as  to 
Lug  establishing  the  great  fairs  or  assemblies  of  ancient  Erin  were  con- 
sidered at  some  length.  The  inference  which  Sir  John  drew  was  that  Rivos 
was  a  local  name  of  the  god  Lugus,  after  whom  the  city  of  Lugudunum  was 
named,  together  with  thirteen  others,  including  among  them  that  of  Leyden 
in  Holland.  Instances  were  next  given  of  how  the  insular  legends  about 
Lug  and  the  Coligny  Calendar  threw  light  on  one  another.  The  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  Coligny  Calendar,  proposed  in  1898  by  M.  le  Commandant 
Esperandieu  after  the  chart  by  M.  Dissard  and  M.  Esperandieu,  was  sub- 


376  THE  CELTIC  KEVIEW 

mitted  to  the  meeting,  '  Edited  by  John  Rhys,  with  later  corrections  by  M. 
Dissard,  Professor  Lechat,  and  the  Editor.'  The  brochure  will  shortly  be 
issued  by  the  Academy. 

In  this  calendar  the  month  of  May  is  called  by  a  name  signifying  the 
month  of  horse-racing.  In  Finnis  1st  Summer  Song  there  is  a  passage 
curiously  confirmatory  of  this,  and  showing  that  Beltane  was  the  season  for 
horse-racing. 

TimeSf  January  28th,  1910. 

PAN-CELTIC  CONGRESS 

As  announced  to  members  of  the  Celtic  Association  it  had  been  practi- 
cally decided  to  hold  the  Association's  fourth  Triennial  Congress  in  the  last 
week  of  August  of  this  year  in  conjunction  with  L'Union  Celtique,  a 
Brussels  organisation  established  by  Mr.  J.  de  Courcy  MacDonnell,  an  Irish 
journalist  and  a  persona  grata  with  the  Belgian  Government,  who,  at  his 
instance,  promised  free  Congress  Buildings  and  free  space  for  a  Celtic 
Exhibition  which,  it  was  proposed,  should  form  part  of  this  year's  Brussels 
Exposition  Universelle. 

A  Committee  of  the  Celtic  Association  thereupon  drew  up  along  with 
Mr.  de  Courcy  MacDonnell  a  Memorial  addressed  to  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  asking  for  Treasury  support  to  the  proposed  Exhibition. 

To  this  influentially-signed  memorial  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
returned  a  very  sympathetic  though  unsatisfactory  reply,  stating  that, 
whilst  deeply  interested  in  the  proposed  Exhibition,  he  could  not  advise 
any  addition  for  such  a  specific  purpose  to  the  Treasury  Grant  already 
promised  in  aid  of  the  British  Exhibitors  at  the  Belgian,  Rome,  and  Turin 
Exhibitions.  It  is  as  well,  however,  that  the  full  scheme  for  a  Celtic  Exhi- 
bition, though  abandoned  for  the  year  1910,  should  still  be  before  all 
sympathisers  with  Celtic  enterprise. 

The  Executive  had,  therefore,  very  reluctantly  to  decline  proceeding 
further  in  combination  with  L'Union  Celtique,  at  the  same  time  intimating 
to  that  Association  their  intention  to  postpone  their  own  Pan-Celtic  Congress 
till  1911.  Indeed,  the  electoral  unrest  in  Brittany,  and  in  the  rest  of  the  six 
nations  makes  such  a  policy  advisable.  Such  a  postponement,  moreover, 
gives  fairer  play  to  L'Union  Celtique  for  holding  a  Celtic  Congress  of 
their  own,  as  it  is  understood  they  still  propose  to  do. 

Let  it  be  understood,  however,  that  the  Exhibition  Scheme  suggested  in 
the  first  instance  by  Mr.  Henry  Jenner,  Vice-President  for  Cornwall,  will, 
in  all  probability,  be  revived  in  the  near  future  and  carried  out  either  at 
the  near  Pan-Celtic  Congress  in  which  the  Bretons  have  the  first  claim,  or 
in  London. 

But  though  the  fourth  Pan-Celtic  Congress  has  been  thus  unavoidably 
postponed,  the  Executors  are  in  no  sense  relaxing  their  energies.  Besides 
encouraging  their  members   to  attend  this  year's  Eisteddfod,  Oireachtaa 


PAN-CELTIC  NOTES  377 

Festival,  M6d,  Breton  and  Kegional  Festivals,  they  are  planning  inter- 
sectional  meetings  of  the  London  Celts  at  Pan-Celtic  Concerts  and  at 
lectures  delivered  before  the  Metropolitan,  Scottish,  Irish,  Welsh,  Manx 
and  Cornish  Associations* 

SCOTTISH  NOTES 

The  Summer  School  of  Gaelic  under  the  auspices  of  An  Comunn 
Gaidhealach  is  to  be  held  this  year  in  Oban  during  the  month  of  August. 
The  Education  Committee  of  An  Comunn  are  making  satisfactory  progress 
with  the  arrangements ;  competent  teachers  have  been  appointed,  and  an 
influential  committee  at  Oban  are  taking  charge  of  the  local  arrangements. 
The  school,  it  is  expected,  will  be  recognised  by  the  Provincial  Committee 
for  the  Training  of  Teachers,  and  subject  to  this  recognition,  the  Secondary 
Education  Committee  for  the  Highland  Counties  will,  it  is  hoped,  provide 
grants  to  assist  teachers  to  attend.  The  first  experiment  of  this  kind  was 
made  last  autumn  at  Roy  Bridge,  and  the  promoters  had  every  reason  to  be 
satisfied  with  the  success  which  attended  their  effort.  It  is  hoped  that 
teachers  and  others  wishing  to  improve  their  knowledge  of  Gaelic  will  take 
advantage  of  the  facilities  thus  afforded.  There  will  be  three  grades  of 
classes,  elementary,  intermediate,  and  advanced,  and  also  a  class  for  Gaelic 
singing. 

The  Comunn  is  increasing  in  strength  and  usefulness.  Several  new 
branches  have  been  formed  during  the  past  winter,  and  from  eight  to  ten 
local  mod's  are  to  be  held  during  the  year  in  various  districts. 

The  local  Committee  of  the  Mod  to  be  held  in  Edinburgh  this  year  are 
actively  engaged  in  making  preparatory  arrangements.  The  Mod  syllabus 
in  Gaelic  and  English  can  now  be  had  from  the  Comunn  secretary, 
108  Hope  Street,  Glasgow. 


WELSH  NOTE 

*  Haneirin.' 

Mr.  Nicholson's  explanation  (supra,  p.  217)  of  the  name  of  Aneurin, 
the  brother  of  St.  Gildas  (1554)  is  inexact.  In  the  first  place,  Latin  h  was 
not  retained  in  words  borrowed  by  the  Welsh.  For  instance — hdben-am, 
hor-am,  hospit-em,  have  become  *  afwyn,'  '  awr,'  and  '  yspyt,'  respectively.  The 
correct  eighth-century  form  of  Honorln-us  is  '  Eneirin,'  just  as  '  Celeini-on ' 
(MSS.  cair  celemion),  the  name  of  Lincoln  in  the  Nomina  Ciuitatum,  is  the 
correct  representative  of  Cdloni-a.  The  descent  of  the  word  would  appear 
to  be  this :  *dn6rin — *anaurin — *anarin.  The  second  form  is  represented 
by  'Aneurin.'  The  last  yielded,  primarily,  'Aneirin':  'Gododin,'  lines 
444,  524,  891 ;  and  finally  eneirin.  This  form  obviously  occurred  in  the 
valuable  little  notice  about  the  poets  of  the  Cymry  which  was  reproduced 


378  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

by  Nennius,  who  supposed  that  it  stood  for  et  neirin.  The  transmitted 
umlaut  is  also  found  in  'Ceredig'  for  Cdrdtic,  and  in  'peleidyr/  the  old 
plural  oip&lddr;  'Gododin,'  lines  340,  700,  721,  743,  950. 

A.  Anscombe. 


BOOK  REVIEWS. 

The  Norse  Influence  on  Celtic  Scotland.  By  George  Henderson,  M.A., 
Ph.D.,  B.  Litt.,  Celtic  Lecturer  in  the  University  of  Glasgow. 
Glasgow:  Maclehose  and  Sons.     1910.     10s. 

This  is  a  work  which  will  undoubtedly  be  read  with  much  interest  by 
all  Highlanders,  and  especially  by  those  belonging  to  the  north  and  west, 
who  care  to  know  anything  about  the  past  history  of  their  people.  Here 
for  the  first  time  they  will  be  able  to  study  in  a  connected  form  the  evidence 
which  goes  to  prove  that  many  centuries  ago  the  Gael  of  Scotland  was  pro- 
foundly influenced  from  without — that  the  Norse  fighting  man,  the  Norse 
trader,  the  Norse  settler,  had  much  to  do  with  shaping  the  later  fortunes  of 
the  Highlands.  Separate  parts  of  the  question  have  from  time  to  time  been 
dealt  with  by  different  hands,  though  not  always  with  equal  fulness  or 
success.  Dr.  Henderson  has  endeavoured  to  treat  the  subject  as  a  whole, 
and  by  doing  so,  makes  its  importance  all  the  more  apparent.  Further 
investigations  of  the  various  problems  must  start  from  the  results  which  he 
has  summed  up  here,  so  far  as  they  are  found  to  be  in  harmony  with  the 
facts  on  both  sides  of  the  question.  This  proviso  is  a  necessary  one,  for,  as 
will  appear  presently,  Dr.  Henderson's  work  is  in  some  points  susceptible  of 
improvement. 

The  opening  chapter,  on  'The  Historic  Background/  gives  a  succinct 
account  of  the  Norwegian  settlements  in  Scotland,  and  only  a  few  points 
here  call  for  remark.  It  ought  perhaps  to  be  noticed,  if  only  to  prevent 
possible  misunderstanding,  that  the  name  of  papar  which  the  Norsemen  gave 
to  the  Culdees  is  simply  the  Latin  papa  or  Greek  papas,  which  among  the 
German  peoples  on  the  Continent  came  to  be  the  ordinary  word  for  *  priest ' 
(cf.  Old  Frisian  papa,  Low  German  pape,  High  German  pfaffe) ;  it  was 
almost  certainly  from  that  side,  and  not  from  the  Culdees  themselves,  that 
the  Norsemen  learned  the  word.  The  statement  on  p.  32,  that  'Earl 
Thorfinn  also  ruled  in  Galloway,'  is  founded  on  an  erroneous  reading,  and 
curiously  enough  Dr.  Henderson  goes  on  to  give  the  only  correct  version  of 
the  passage,  which  shows  that  the  Earl  was  only  temporarily  lying  '  at  the 
place  called  Gadd-getJlar  where  Scotland  and  England  meet.'  That  Gadd- 
ge'6lar  is  intended  to  represent  GalUgaidheal  is  clear  enough,  and  the  locality 
is  definitely  indicated,  but  there  is  more  difficulty  in  the  precise  relationship 
of  this  name  to  the  later  Galloway  than  is  implied  in  the  remarks  on  p.  18. 

The  chapter  on  'Scoto-Norse  Art '  is  very  brief,  and  the  scantiness  of  the 
material  is   somewhat  surprising.     In   connection  with  this  part  of  the 


^ 


1 


BOOK  REVIEWS  379 

subject,  however,  a  number  of  good  illustrations  are  given,  Runic  stones 
from  Inchmarnock  and  Barra,  the  Hunterston  brooch,  etc.  Towards  the 
end  of  the  chapter  Dr.  Stewart  is  quoted  as  deriving  Camus  Fridaig  'probably 
from  the  Scandinavian  goddess  Fridda  or  Frigga,'  but  any  such  Fridda  is 
quite  unknown  to  the  old  northern  mythology. 

'  Scoto-Norse  Personal  Names '  is  a  more  fertile  scheme,  but  the  first  page 
contains  a  strange  statement.  Dr.  Henderson  says,  'Cleasby  [and]  Vig- 
fusson's  Dictionary  states  that  fwljotr  is  found  on  many  runic  stones  in 
Denmark,  and  that  Macleod  is  probably  from  Macljdtr,  the  por-  not  having 
been  inserted  (Diet.,  p.  744),'  and  he  adds  in  a  footnote  '  This  is  impossible  : 
it  would  give  Mac  Thorleot.'  Now  there  is  no  statement  of  this  nature 
either  on  p.  744  or  on  p.  743  (which  contains  the  article  on  pdrr),  and  Vig- 
fusson  at  any  rate  knew  that  Ljdtr  by  itself  was  a  Norwegian  and  Icelandic 
name.  Something  must  have  gone  wrong  with  Dr.  Henderson's  notes  here. 
Apart  from  this,  however,  and  a  few  minor  points,  the  chapter  is  one  of  the 
most  satisfactory  in  the  book.  There  is  much  more  doubtful  matter  in  the  one 
that  follows,  on  '  Norse  Influences  in  Belief  and  Ritual  among  the  Gaidheal.' 
This  is  of  all  others  the  subject  in  which  caution  is  required  :  it  is  so  easy 
to  find  resemblances,  and  so  difficult  to  determine  whether  they  are  due  to 
the  precise  influence  in  question  or  to  some  wider  common  cause.  The  aff'air 
of  Halmadary,  which  to  Dr.  Henderson  *  shows  the  tenacity  of  Norse  heathen 
ideas,'  does  not  appear  to  differ  materially  from  cases  of  religious  frenzy  in 
other  countries.  In  several  cases  the  supposed  influence  depends  on  a 
doubtful  identification  of  words,  as  that  of  Gaelic  frith  with  Norse  fr4tt. 
This  appears  improbable,  as  Norse  S  and  it  would  not  normally  give  Gaelic 
/  and  th ;  nor  does  it  matter  that  fr^tt  stands  for  an  earlier  *freht  for  this  is 
also  the  case  with  Norse  sUtta,  which  gives  the  place-name  Sleat.  It  is 
extremely  improbable,  also,  that  Callarnish  can  be  '  derived  from  Kjallar,  a 
Norse  name  of  Odin ' ;  the  correct  form  is  Kjalarr,  with  genitive  Kjalars,  but 
like  so  many  more  names  for  the  gods,  there  is  no  trace  of  it  outside  of  the 
old  poetry,  and  no  evidence  that  it  would  ever  have  been  used  in  a  place- 
name.  That  Nogi  could  represent  Norse  nyJcr  seems  phonetically  impossible, 
and  as  teine-Mginn  corresponds  exactly  to  the  English  and  Scottish  need-fire, 
which  is  a  very  old  term  in  the  Teutonic  languages,  the  suggestion  that 
diginn  may  represent  an  ON.  eikinn,  *  oaken,'  has  little  probability.  Equally 
improbable  is  the  attempt  to  explain  crann-tdra  as  from  ON.  her-or,  war- 
arrow,  and  quite  incredible  the  idea  that  the  Gaelic  word  was  re-adopted  in 
ON.  as  tara,  '  war.'  It  must  be  noted  that  nothing  is  really  known  of  this 
word,  beyond  the  fact  that  it  occurs  in  an  alliterative  list  of  poetic  terms 
appended  to  part  of  Snorn's  Edda.  These  terms  were  collected  at  a  pretty 
early  date  (probably  about  1200)  from  still  older  poems,  and  this  chronology  is 
quite  sufficient  to  show  that  the  suggestion  is  altogether  untenable.  The  idea 
that  the  English  eagre,  'river-bore,' preserves  the  name  of  the  Old  Norse  sea- 
god  ^gir  is  against  all  phonetic  laws,  and  the  same  objection  applies  to  the 


380  THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 

Gaelic  Eigir.  As  Shony  is  a  sea-god,  it  is  difficult  to  see  any  connection  with 
Sjof Tiy  who  was  a  goddess  of  love !  But,  '  in  any  case  the  word  is  Norse,' 
says  Dr.  Henderson — a  method  of  reasoning  which  does  not  altogether  carry 
conviction  with  it.  In  the  note  on  dreag,  dreug,  or  driwj,  'meteor,'  the  ON. 
draugr  is  set  aside  on  phonetic  grounds,  and  the  word  is  said  to  be  an 
adoption  of  the  equivalent  Old  English  drdag.  But  OE.  g  would  have  given 
Gaelic  gh,  and  moreover  there  is  no  such  word  as  an  OE.  *drdag,  apparition.' 
These  examples  are  perhaps  sufficient  to  show  that  this  chapter  requires 
close  revision,  nor  would  it  suffer  by  the  excision  of  various  passages  which 
have  but  little  direct  bearing  on  the  subject. 

'  Norse  Linguistic  Influence '  is  a  very  long  chapter,  and  it  might  have 
been  better  to  devote  a  separate  one  to  the  place-names,  as  these  are  on  a 
somewhat  different  footing  from  words  actually  adopted  into  current  speech. 
It  is  in  this  chapter  that  the  Norse  influence  on  the  Gael  comes  out  most 
strongly,  and  it  is  also  the  one  in  which  an  intimate  knowledge  of  both 
Scandinavian  and  Gaelic  is  most  necessary.  Unfortunately,  from  the  very 
beginning  of  the  book  signs  are  not  wanting  that  Dr.  Henderson's  equip- 
ment on  the  Scandinavian  side  is  rather  slender,  as  when  he  prints  '  pap  0y 
st(ir-r'  for  'pap0y  st6ra,'  'pi6rsa-Jl'  for  *pj6rs-d,'  cites  'N.  lagamu'Sr,  pi. 
logmenn,^  writes  '  Greenland '  for  '  Grenland '  (a  district  in  Norway),  does  not 
distinguish  between  the  names  Bjarni  and  Bjorn  (p.  58),  and  speaks  of 
Heimskringla  Saga  (p.  78).  In  this  chapter  similar  inaccuracies  are  far  too 
frequent,  and  one  is  further  surprised  to  find  that  no  serious  effort  is  made 
to  master  the  details  of  Old  Norse  inflection,  without  a  knowledge  of  which 
it  is  impossible  to  form  place-names  correctly.  Hence  such  compounds  as 
iarfr-dalr,  melr-fjor^r,  Kjallakr-ey,  eyrr-gily  Vlli-bdlstdSr,  in  which  the  first 
element  is  simply  left  in  the  nominative  instead  of  being  put  into  the  proper 
combining  or  genitive  form.  Sometimes  the  accent  (denoting  length)  is 
omitted,  as  in  vagr  for  vdgr,  and  sometimes  wrongly  inserted,  as  in  Jcjdir  for 
Jgarr;  on  p.  175  one  finds  fra  Giljan  printed  in  place  of  frd  Giljom,  and  so 
on.  It  cannot  be  said  that  these  errors  vitiate  the  general  results  of  the 
chapter,  but  in  themselves  they  are  objectionable,  and  not  always  harmless. 

There  is  so  much  detail  in  the  matter  treated  here,  that  it  is  quite  im- 
possible to  discuss  the  many  separate  points  which  might  call  for  remark. 
Speaking  generally,  it  may  be  said  that  in  the  main  Dr.  Henderson's  identi- 
fications are  correct  in  substance,  though  frequently  marred  by  inaccuracies 
of  the  kind  mentioned  above.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  cases  of  cebsanaichj  droinip, 
langhadul,  etc.,  his  suggestions  are  more  ingenious  than  convincing,  and  a 
number  of  these  might  well  have  been  relegated  to  a  special  list  of  doubtful 
words.  The  chronology  of  the  Scandinavian  words  is  also  a  matter  of  some 
importance,  which  is  not  sufficiently  taken  into  consideration,  and  is  indeed 
a  difficult  matter  for  one  who  has  not  made  prolonged  studies  in  that  field. 
Altogether,  one  could  wish  that  Dr.  Henderson  had  thought  of  submitting 
this  chapter  to  an  impartial  Scandinavian  scholar,  who  could  at  least  hare 


BOOK  REVIEWS  381 

seen  to  the  correctness  of  the  forms,  and  would  probably  have  given  useful 
hints  on  other  points.  Some  examples  from  the  first  few  pages  will  show 
what  might  have  been  done  in  this  way.  The  change  of  Gaelic  -rt  to  -rst,  -st 
is  not  correctly  described  as  '  a  change  within  Norse  itself  as  in  purs,  also 
puss,  a  giant,'  for  the  latter  is  a  simple  assimilation  to  r  to  5,  while  the  former 
is  the  development  of  a  new  s  altogether.  It  is  not  certain  that  uinneag  is 
from  ON.  vindauga ;  the  hard  -g  is  more  suggestive  of  Scottish  winnock.  The 
Norse  word  klof  does  not  mean  '  cloven,'  and  the  proper  word  to  cite  is  kloji 
(oblique  cases  klofa).  For  N.  krokr  read  krdkr.  The  N.  dvist,  being  a  rare 
and  purely  abstract  word,  is  not  likely  to  be  the  source  of  aibhist,  ruin.  It 
is  unnecessary  to  cite  'dat.  aarni=drni,'  as  aa  is  simply  another  method  of 
writing  a  long  a.  On  p.  115  marag,  etc.,  is  repeated  from  p.  113  with  a  new 
misprint  of  -mor  for  -morr.  On  p.  11 6  '  E.  stub '  is  strangely  cited  between 
ON.  staup  and  Dan.  stob  ;  the  two  latter  words  are  identical,  but  the  English 
one  is  quite  distinct.  There  is  no  Norse  uti-bak,  and  the  formation  would 
be  unlikely  to  arise.  For  N.  brdkr  read  brdk,  pi.  brdekr.  On  p.  117  for  gerdi 
read  ger^i.  The  hard  d  of  Mrathad,  utraid  could  not  come  from  ON.  Mrei^ ; 
the  word  would  more  naturally  represent  an  older  Scottish  outraid  or  English 
outroad.  On  p.  118  there  is  no  reason  why  buandi  should  have  a  different 
accent  from  bdandi.  Lower  down,  for  hrugi  read  hr-Aga.  On  p.  119  bolU  and 
lokar  should  be  bolli  and  lokarr.  On  p.  121  (under  geadas,  pike)  N.  gedda  is 
said  to  be  '  allied  to  goad ' ;  but  goad,  OE.  gad,  is  a  different  word  from  ON. 
gaddr,  to  which  gedda  is  related.  On  the  same  page  '  ucas,  ugsa,  coal-fish '  is 
compared  with  *  N.  uggi,  a  fin  of  a  fish ' ;  but  the  very  fish  in  question  is 
called  in  Icelandic  upsi  and  in  Norwegian  ufs.  (For  the  variation  between 
ps  and  cs,  cf.  ON.  ups,  eaves  of  a  house,  which  also  appears  as  ux.)  It  is 
obvious  that  a  thorough  revision  on  these  lines  would  have  greatly  improved 
the  value  of  this  part  of  Dr.  Henderson's  work. 

*  Continuation  of  Norse  Influence,'  which  forms  the  sixth  chapter,  partakes 
of  the  defects  of  the  fourth.  In  the  earlier  part  of  it  there  is  much  that 
might  be  questioned,  and  not  a  little  that  appears  superfluous.  This,  how- 
ever, may  be  to  some  extent  a  matter  of  opinion ;  racial  qualities  in  litera- 
ture are  somewhat  elusive  things,  and  apparent  traces  of  them  will  always 
appeal  more  strongly  to  some  minds  than  to  others.  Even  the  reader  who 
is  not  convinced  of  the  reality  of  the  Norse  influence,  as  exemplified  in 
Gaelic  poetry  and  humour,  may  learn  something  new  about  Gaelic  legend 
from  the  latter  part  of  the  chapter. 

Of  the  various  appendices  the  most  interesting  and  useful  is  that  on 
'  Gadhelic  ^  Sounds  in  Loan-words  from  Norse.'  Dealing  with  a  wider  field, 
it  is  naturally  fuller  than  the  table  previously  given  by  Dr.  Watson  in  the 

^  It  is  difficult  to  see  on  what  principle  Dr.  Henderson  uses  the  various  forms 
Gaelic,  Gadelic,  and  Gadhelic.  It  is  surely  unnecessary  to  employ  the  latter  forms 
when  the  modern  tongue  and  people  are  referred  to,  and  thus  impair  their  usefulness 
for  denoting  the  older  linguistic  and  racial  group,  in  contrast  to  Brythonic. 


382 


THE  CELTIC  REVIEW 


•  Place-Names  of  Ross  and  Cromarty,'  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  well 
arranged,  and  contains  a  certain  amount  of  doubtful  matter.  Naturally 
many  of  the  inexact  forms  of  the  main  work  recur  here,  and  sometimes  new 
mistakes  appear,  such  as  '  stremyr-nes,'  which   is  evidently  intended  for 

•  streymr-nes,'  though  this  in  itself  is  an  impossible  compound. 

There  are  various  points  into  which  Dr.  Henderson  has  not  entered, 
such  as  the  actual  geographical  range  of  the  Norse  influence,  its  effect  on  the 
physique  and  character  of  the  districts  where  it  was  strongest,  and  the  share 
taken  by  Norse  leaders  in  the  formation  of  the  clans,  but,  on  the  whole,  his 
work  gives  the  main  outlines  of  the  question.  From  what  has  been  said, 
however,  it  will  be  evident  that  his  book  does  not  by  any  means  close  the 
subject.  There  is  still  much  to  be  done  in  reducing  the  matter  to  a  definite 
shape,  and  establishing  clear  results.  On  the  linguistic  side  there  is  still 
required  fuller  investigation  of  local  words  in  the  Norse  districts,  and  a 
wider  comparison  with  Irish  on  the  one  hand,  and  Lowland  Scottish  or 
English  on  the  other.  On  the  historic  side  clearer  ideas  are  wanted  as  to 
the  exact  manner  in  which  the  Norse  words  passed  into  use  among  Gaelic 
speakers,  why  the  Gaels  took  over  Norse  place-names  instead  of  translating 
them  or  imposing  new  ones,  and  at  what  period  the  language  of  the  West 
and  North  came  to  be  exclusively  Gaelic  instead  of  largely  Norwegian.  To 
throw  light  on  this  there  are  the  parallel  cases  in  England  and  Normandy, 
where  the  descendants  of  Scandinavians  also  gave  up  their  own  language, 
but  with  very  different  effects  upon  the  tongues  they  then  adopted.  Apart 
from  the  actual  results  which  it  contains.  Dr.  Henderson's  book  will  serve  a 
useful  purpose  if  it  helps  to  promote  the  further  and  more  critical  study  of 
these  various  problems.  W.  A.  Craigie. 


Old  Boss-shire  and  Scotland.  By  W.  MacGill,  Northern  Counties  Printing 
and  Publishing  Company.  Crown  8vo,  435  pp.  20s.  6d.  post  free. 
This  work  is  the  result  of  Mr.  MacGill's  researches  among  the  documents 
preserved  in  the  Balnagown  charter-chest  and  in  the  archives  of  the  ancient 
burgh  of  Tain.  In  the  Court-house  buildings  of  Tain  there  are  stored  many 
thousands  of  papers  and  parchments,  some  relating  to  the  burgh,  but  by  far 
the  greater  part  being  the  documents  of  Commissary  Courts  held  in  Tain, 
Fortrose,  and  Cromarty.  In  Balnagown  Castle  there  are  three  boxes  full  of 
papers  of  the  sixteenth  to  eighteenth  centuries,  which  were  placed  at  Mr. 
MacGill's  disposal  by  Sir  Charles  Ross.  The  two  collections  are  closely  related, 
and  are  largely  supplementary  of  each  other.  They  relate  to  all  parts  of  Ross- 
shire  and  many  parts  of  neighbouring  counties,  as  well  as  to  other  parts  of 
Scotland.  The  author — or  rather  the  editor — has  arranged  his  voluminous 
material  under  the  headings  of  (1)  Church  Affairs;  (2)  Education  and 
Medicine ;  (3)  Law  and  Order,  Politics  and  Revenue ;  (4)  Houses  and  Fur- 
niture, Dress  and  Social  Matters ;  (5)  Industries,  Commerce,  and  Communi- 
cations ;  (6)  Covenant,  Commonwealth,  and  Revolution ;  (7)  Stuart  Risings 


BOOK  EEVIEWS  383 

and  Highland  Regiments ;  (8)  Localities  and  Families.  The  volume  is  illus- 
trated with  photographs  of  buildings,  documents,  and  signatures,  and  has  a 
good  index. 

Mr.  MacGill  has  exercised  his  discretion  in  excising  such  parts  of  the 
documents  as  were,  in  his  judgment,  of  no  permanent  value  or  interest.  By 
this  plan  he  has  contrived  to  pack  much  more  into  his  book  than  he  could 
have  done  had  he  given  the  originals  in  exienso,  and  even  if  the  result  is  a 
sort  of  antiquarian  and  historical  pemmican,  we  are  not  inclined  to  quarrel 
with  his  decision.  The  book  is  a  very  mine  of  information,  often  curious, 
and  great  credit  is  due  to  Mr.  MacGill  for  his  pains  and  labour.  His  own 
remarks  in  square  braekets  show  how  completely  he  has  mastered  his 
materials,  and  help  greatly  to  the  understanding  of  the  circumstances. 
Occasionally  he  tends  to  take  '  phrases  of  style '  too  seriously,  as  if  they 
represented  the  feelings  of  the  client,  whereas  they  are  really  legal  common- 
places. But  the  service  he  has  done  is  so  great  that  it  would  be  ungracious 
to  insist  on  shortcomings  that  are  after  all  but  trifling.  W.  J.  W. 

Alt-Celtischer  Sprachschatz.    Von  Alfred  Holder.    B.  G.  Teubner : 

Leipzig.  8s.  per  part. 
The  nineteenth  part  of  this  monumental  and  typically  Germanic  work 
consists  of  128  pp.,  and  contains  articles  from  Ad-vatucd  to  Avediur,  being 
an  appendix  to  130  pp.  of  the  first  volume.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  appen- 
dix keeps  pace  in  bulk  with  the  book  itself,  a  fact  owing  partly  to  the 
extent  of  the  field,  partly  to  the  amount  of  new  matter  available  since  the 
publication  of  the  first  part  of  vol.  i.  in  189L  One  or  two  points  may  be 
given  in  illustration.  Advatuca,  now  Vetschau,  N.W.  of  Aachen,  is  com- 
pared with  O.F.  faidche,  fditche  (Gaelic  /aicA)=*vaticia,  the  open  place,  the 
green  before  a  fort,  exercising  ground.  Anava,  a  river  mentioned  by  the 
Geographer  of  Ravenna  as  between  'Dorvantium  and  Bdora,'  is  equated 
with  our  Annan,  and  seven  Continental  parallels  are  given,  all  but  one  in 
Germany.  The  Agosages,  a  Celtic  tribe  who  fared  from  Europe  into  Asia 
Minor,  are  pleasantly  explained  as  the  '  cattle-lifters '  (ag,  agh  +  sagim,  I 
seek,  Gaelic  ionn-saich,  ionn-suigh) ;  the  old  original  Macfarlanes  in  fact.  Dr. 
Holder  has  greatly  extended  his  list  of  terms  in  Alb-,  cf.  our  Alba,  Alesia, 
which  he  formerly  equated  with  our  aileach,  he  now  compares  with  Alesia 
in  Corsica  and  Alesa  in  Sicily.  The  stem  alto-,  high,  whence  our  allt,  origin- 
ally meaning  a  height,  is  found  in  the  stream  Altina  and  other  names.  The 
important  class  of  names  in  are-,  before  (our  air)  is  extended,  as  also  those 
in  ate-  (our  ath),  with  frequently  intensive  meaning.  '     W.  J.  W. 

Duthil:    Past   arid   Present     By    the    Rev.    Donald    Maclean.       The 

Northern  Counties  Printing  and  Publishing  Company.     Is.  and  Is.  6d. 

This  interesting  little  book,  by  the  minister  of  Free  St.   Columba's, 

Edinburgh,  deals  mainly  with  the  spiritual  life  of  a  parish  in  the  central 

fastnesses  of  the  Highlands  which,  till  it  was  recently  opened   up  by  the 


384 


THE  CELTIC  KEVIEW 


railway,  was  but  little  subjected  to  outside  influences.  The  fame  of  the 
*  Men '  of  Duthil  was  wide-spread.  So  uncompromising  were  they  and  so 
exacting  that  on  one  occasion  they  went  for  fifteen  years  without  a 
minister.  Mr.  MacLean's  narrative  shows,  as  might  be  expected,  the 
insight  and  discrimination  which  are  peculiarly  desirable  in  dealing  with 
the  spiritual  life  of  a  deeply  earnest  but  often  uninstructed  and  difficult 
people.  His  introductory  chapter  on  the  'Remote  Past'  includes  a 
scholarly  and  reliable  study  of  the  more  important  place-names  of  the 
district. 

Reminiscences  and  Reflections  of  an  Octogenarian  Highlander  is  the  title  of 
a  most  interesting  and  valuable  book  by  Mr.  Duncan  Campbell,  late  Editor 
of  the  Northern  Chronicle.  Mr.  Campbell  in  the  course  of  his  long  and 
active  life  has  been  an  observant  and  thoughtful  spectator  of  the  changes 
that  have  come  over  his  native  Highlands.  The  book  is  a  remarkable  pro- 
duction for  a  man  who  has  passed  fourscore.  It  has  as  frontispiece  an 
excellent  portrait  of  the  author.  (Northern  Counties  Printing  and 
Publishing  Company,  Inverness.) 

The  Gaelic  Society  of  Inverness  will  soon  publish  the  twenty-sixth 
volume  of  its  Transactions.  The  new  volume  will,  we  understand,  contain 
many  papers  of  great  interest,  and  is  likely  to  maintain  fully  the  high 
standard  of  its  predecessors.  It  cannot  be  too  widely  known  that  the 
annual  membership  subscription  of  5s.  includes  the  Transactions. 

The  forthcoming  Book  of  Arran,  which  may  be  expected  almost  directly, 
will  be  awaited  with  interest.  The  intensive  study  of  definite  localities  is 
an  excellent  thing,  provided  that  it  goes  in  the  right  lines,  and  Arran  well 
deserves  such  study. 

The  veteran  Celtist,  Dr.  Alexander  Carmichael,  contemplates  issuing  two 
additional  volumes  of  Carmina  Gadelica,  consisting  of  further  ancient  Gaelic 
hymns,  incantations,  and  other  lore  collected  chiefly  in  the  Western  Isles. 
The  two  volumes  of  Carmina  already  published  are  now  practically  out  of 
print.  Dr.  Carmichael  is  also  issuing  a  second  edition  of  Deirdre,  being  the 
remarkable  versions  of  the  Clann  Usnech  saga,  which  he  collected  in 
Barra. 

M.  D'AEBOIS  DE  JUBAINVILLE 

Death  has  taken  another  of  our  few  Celtic  scholars.  M.  D'Arbois  de 
Jubainville  died  in  Paris  on  the  26th  of  February,  in  his  eighty-third  year. 
As  Professor  of  Celtic  in  the  College  de  France  he  was  a  source  of 
inspiration  to  his  pupils,  and  the  more  notable  of  the  younger  Celtists  of 
France  owe  their  interest  in  this  subject  largely  to  his  enthusiasm.  But  it 
is  as  editor  for  so  many  years  of  the  Revue  Celtique  that  he  is  best  known,  and 
by  that  he  will  be  remembered  even  more  than  by  his  books,  wide  as  the 
range  of  these  is.  He  was  a  member  of  various  learned  societies,  and  also 
of  the  Legion  of  Honour. 


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